IICAS International Law Speaker Series and California Western School of Law Present:

Brendan O’Leary
Lauder Professor of Political Science
Director of the University of Pennsylvania Program in Ethnic Conflict
University of Pennsylvania

"The Kurdistan Region and the Making of Iraq's Constitution"

Monday, May 16, 2011
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Social Sciences Building (SSB), Room 107

Register: http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/registration.html

In 2009-2010, Brendan O'Leary was the Senior Advisor on Power-Sharing in the Mediation Support Unit of the Department of Political Affairs of the United Nations. Between 2003 and 2009 he was one of the international constitutional advisors to the Kurdistan Region. He will explain how the Kurdistan Region's strategy and negotiating policies significantly modified the Transitional Administrative Law of 2004, and how in conjunction with key figures in SCIRI they (potentially) re-made Iraq in 2005 as a pluralist federation with consociational features. He will appraise the constitution's subsequent evolution.

Among O'Leary's numerous books and articles are How To Get Out of Iraq with Integrity (2009) and The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq (2005, co-edited with John McGarry and Khaled Salih). Optional reading for this talk includes: McGarry, John, and Brendan O'Leary. "Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription." International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON) 5, no. 4 (2007): 670-98. (The talk will not replicate what is in the article.)

Brendan O’Leary is Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Program in Ethnic Conflict. Between 1983 and 2003, O’Leary was on the faculty of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he had been Professor of Political Science, chair (convenor) of its Government Department, and an elected Academic Governor.

O’Leary is the author, co-author or co-editor of nineteen books and collections, and has authored or co-authored over 125 refereed articles and book chapters. O’Leary’s research interests include theories of the liberal democratic state, nationalism, national and ethnic conflict regulation, political violence, and power-sharing in deeply divided places. He is a graduate of Keble College, Oxford University, where he received a first class honors degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1981). O'Leary wrote his PhD thesis at the London School of Economics & Political Science, which won the Robert McKenzie Memorial Prize.

More info:
http://iicas.ucsd.edu/speaker-series/intl-law.html

The 2010-2011 International Law Speaker Series is jointly sponsored by the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS), at UC San Diego, and the International Legal Studies Program, at California Western School of Law.

Event questions:
iicas-events@ucsd.edu
http://iicas.ucsd.edu