Fragmented Sovereignty in Iraq: International Law’s Inadequacy in Regulating State–Militia Relations

Abstract

Fragmented sovereignty poses a significant challenge to the international legal system, particularly in post-conflict and hybrid governance contexts. Iraq exemplifies this problem, as substantial non-state armed groups contend with official authority while asserting varying levels of legal legitimacy, political influence, and foreign loyalty. International law has inadequately governed state-militia interactions in Iraq, resulting in a legal and normative void that perpetuates fragmented sovereignty. It asserts that existing international legal frameworks are state-centric and inadequate for situations when militias are neither foreign nor subordinate to the state. The study situates Iraq's post-2003 governance within the context of sovereignty, state accountability, and debates over the monopoly on legitimate force. International law lacks a clear delineation of duty, attribution, and accountability within hybrid militia frameworks such as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a situation that Iraqi domestic law has attempted to formalise. Consequently, militias associated with, endorsed by, or formally integrated into official entities sometimes function in a nebulous realm, circumventing international humanitarian, human rights, and state accountability laws. This doctrinal and analytical article employs Iraq as a case study rather than an anomaly, using international legal treaties, jurisprudence, and scholarly literature. It demonstrates that effective control, comprehensive oversight, and attribution are inadequate for dynamic state-militia interactions including political negotiation, concurrent command frameworks, and selective state surveillance. International law inadequately safeguards persons, enforces accountability, and upholds the rule of law when sovereignty is operationally divided although legally united, as seen by the Iraqi case. The study argues that international law must reevaluate state-militia interactions. International law must evolve to accommodate shared, delegated, or fragmented authority instead of categorising militias as non-state actors or proxies. International law is ill-equipped to address the legal ramifications of fragmented sovereignty without modification, confining states such as Iraq between nominal sovereignty and actual power dispersion.