Iraq’s Legal Crisis Through the Lens of Its Personal Status Law

Anne Harper is a JD student and pro-bono scholar at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

On 21 January 2025, Iraq’s legislature adopted a law that will highly likely subject Iraqi women and girls to human rights violations, based entirely on internal regulations developed by the religious sect to which they belong. Specifically, the legislation amended the 1959 Personal Status Law (PSL) to expand the authority of religious sects within Iraq to develop their own family (personal status) laws based on their interpretations of Sharia law.

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Conversion for Convenience: Manipulating Personal Law Status in Religious Legal Systems

Akif Tahiiev is a post-doctoral research fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt.

In some countries, legal systems are deeply shaped by religious doctrines, especially in areas concerning personal status, such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Under these frameworks, individuals belonging to different religious communities are often governed by distinct sets of laws. Although they may possess equal citizenship in theory, the legal rights, responsibilities, and protections afforded them in personal and familial matters can differ significantly depending on their religious affiliation.

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Public Governance and Private Relationships: State Regulation and Religious Marriage in the UK


Michelle Flynn is an Irish barrister and a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. She is currently a Visiting Researcher at Yale Law School in the United States.  Michelle is a 2019 alumna of the ICLRS Religion and the Rule of Law Young Scholars Fellowship Program.

In Attorney General v Akhter & ors [2020] EWCA Civ 122 the UK Court of Appeal overturned a judgment of the High Court which held that an Islamic marriage ceremony, a nikah, could have legal effect. There was a certain irony in the decision, which focused on the formal requirements of marriage law in England and Wales, being issued on St. Valentine’s Day; originally a Christian feast day, it has become a globally recognized day to celebrate love and romance. In modern times, marriage is generally regarded as intensely romantic, however the reality of the potential complications of marriage in our increasingly diverse and multicultural societies is frequently overlooked. (more…)

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