An Iraqi roadmap to pursue five trillion dollars from the 2003 invasion
On Saturday, academic and economic expert Nasser Al-Kinani said that he had prepared a legal file estimating the compensation for damages inflicted on Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion at about five trillion dollars, calling on the Iraqi government to rejoin the International Criminal Court to move this file internationally.
Al-Kinani told Shafaq News Agency that over the past years he has collected a large file containing legal documents, video recordings, photos and international reports related to what he described as the violations and damages of the invasion and occupation, noting that he has contacted law firms and legal companies in the United States, Britain and other countries to study the possibility of filing compensation claims in the name of Iraq.
He added that estimates prepared by legal authorities who had reviewed the file, according to him, put the value of possible compensation at about five trillion dollars, which could be claimed from the countries that participated in the invasion of Iraq, foremost among them the United States.
Shafaq News was unable to independently verify the estimated extent of the damages or the legal mechanisms that could allow for the collection of these compensations.
But Al-Kinani said that the damages he is demanding be documented include state institutions, Iraqi, Arab and foreign private sector companies, in addition to the damages inflicted on citizens, noting that the war and its aftermath caused large numbers of dead, wounded and affected people.
He pointed out that the main obstacle to this path is that Iraq has not become a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, after the Iraqi interim government headed by Iyad Allawi decided to join the system in February 2005, before withdrawing the decision in March of the same year.
Al-Kinani said that Iraq’s rejoining the International Criminal Court would, in his estimation, give Baghdad an opportunity to pursue legal cases related to violations, compensation, and the protection of the rights of the state and its citizens.
The International Criminal Court, established under the Rome Statute, is competent to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. It is not, by its very nature, a court to adjudicate compensation claims between states.
Article 5 of the Rome Statute stipulates the crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court, while Article 25 defines individual criminal responsibility, i.e., the prosecution of natural persons, not states. Article 11 also stipulates that the Court shall exercise its jurisdiction over crimes committed after the Statute has entered into force for the State concerned.
Article 75 of the Statute relates to compensating victims after a specific person has been convicted, and includes restitution, compensation and rehabilitation, but it does not provide a direct route to obligate a state to pay financial compensation to another state.
The International Criminal Court had previously examined allegations of war crimes committed by British forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, given that Britain is a State Party to the Rome Statute, but it closed the preliminary examination in 2020 without opening a full investigation.
Shafaq.com