Newswise — University of Maryland constitutional expert and consultant to Iraqi Kurdish leaders, Karol Soltan, is available for interview. Soltan recently returned from Iraq where he served as part of a team that helped develop a proposed constitution for Kurdish representatives to take to the negotiating table. He also advised them during the talks. Soltan continues to monitor Iraq's constitutional process from the United States.
Soltan Says:"It's not like Philadelphia. They're not 13 relatively homogeneous states at little risk of fighting a civil war. They're trying to prevent an early-stage civil war from exploding. They've spent a lot of time trying to settle borders and generally diminish the potential for violent conflict. In effect, they're working out key provisions of a peace treaty. Constitution-making is much more difficult."
"I entered Iraq from the north and the first thing that struck me was the flag. It was the flag of Kurdistan at the border. There wasn't an Iraqi flag in sight. It felt like Kurdistan not Iraq. The Kurds have had de facto independence for a decade, and that's a real constraint on negotiators.
"In its current form, the proposed constitution looks decentralized enough to diminish the chance of a large-scale civil war in the short run, though in general things don't look good. Some legislative and enforcement provisions that might have helped long-term stability were dropped. Any effort to create a more centralized government will only make things worse."
BIOGRAPHYKAROL SOLTAN " associate professor of government and politics, University of Maryland
EXPERTISE: constitutional issues in fragile and failing states; Iraqi constitution; nation building; bargaining and game theory
CREDENTIALS: Advised Kurdistan government in negotiations on Iraqi constitution (July/August 2005); helped guide development of East Timor constitution (2000) as deputy director of the Office of Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs for the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor; worked on Polish state government reform (1991-1994) at the National School of Public Administration, Warsaw; advised USAID on aid programs for fragile and failed states; books include A New Constitutionalism and The Constitution of Good Societies.
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