The Subject in International Law: The Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Occupied Iraq and its Laws

In the wake of the war and occupation of Iraq, 2003–2004, international legal scholars struggled to understand and describe the event and the law surrounding it. This study takes this as its point of departure, and it unfolds through an analysis of the material conditions and linguistic–rhetoric and affective–psychic registers through which the Administrator of the Coalition
Provisional Authority of occupied Iraq emerged as a legal subject in response to the international law of belligerent occupation and related law and policy. The aim of the study is to contribute to a jurisprudence of the subject in international law: to point to the importance of attending to subjects – as distinct from entities with international legal personality – when we, as international legal scholars and practitioners, struggle to understand, describe, and respond to the events and law of our time.