This article was posted to the IVAW website, August 2009
Washington, DC – On Thursday, August 6 IVAW held a demonstration at the U.S. State Department concerning negotiations between the Iraqi government and international oil companies and related labor rights issues.
Several days prior, IVAW Board Member T.J. Buonomo spoke with an official representing the Iraq Office of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs regarding the U.S. government's position on foreign investment in Iraq's energy industry. Mr. Buonomo introduced himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, upon which the official stated that the issue could not be discussed over an unsecured phone line. After Mr. Buonomo reiterated his civilian status, the official stated that the U.S. government has no involvement in the negotiations but continues to advise caution on investment in the Kurdistan region due to current legal ambiguities, citing a State Department Inspector General Report released last March.
Numerous attempts to contact the State Department's Office of International Labor and Corporate Social Responsibility by phone and email have not been responded to.
IVAW calls on U.S. diplomatic officials to discourage foreign investment in Iraq's energy industry without the establishment of a legal framework and accompanying oversight mechanisms, which are critical to long term political stability in the country. IVAW also presses U.S. officials to publicly champion labor rights in Iraq, which the State Department reported this year as contrasting sharply with International Labour Organization standards.
Background
After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, U.S. officials transformed Iraq's legal system in order to open the country to virtually unregulated foreign investment- an act in contravention of international law. One of the Iraqi laws kept in place by the Coalition Provisional Authority, however, was a Saddam Hussein-era prohibition on free association and collective bargaining in the public sector. This legal measure has been used to suppress popular dissent against ongoing negotiations over the role of foreign companies in Iraq’s energy industry. These highly controversial negotiations have in turn contributed to political instability throughout the country, undermining the transition to full Iraqi sovereignty.
IVAW recognizes that Iraq's control over its natural resource development is a prerequisite to long term political stability there and will continue to press the State Department to formulate and implement U.S. policy accordingly.
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