Chibli Mallat

Former Fellow, 2006-2007
St. Joseph's University, Beirut

Chibli Mallat is the EU Jean Monnet Chair of European Law and Director, European Union Center, St. Joseph's University, Beirut, Lebanon. He is also a candidate for the Presidency of Lebanon and principal in the Mallat Law Offices, Beirut. Before returning to his native Lebanon in 1996, he was Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (CIMEL) in the School of Oriental and African Studies (S.O.A.S.) at the University of London. He is the editor of over twenty books, and author of Introduction to Middle Eastern Law (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2007); Democracy in America (Beirut, Nahar, in Arabic 2001); Presidential Choices (Beirut, 1998); The Middle East into the 21st Century (Garnet, 1996) and The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhamad Baqer as-Sadr, Najaf, and the Shi'i International (Cambridge University Press, 1993), which won the 1993-4 Albert Hourani award of the North American Middle East Studies Association. In addition, his articles in English, French and Arabic have been published in academic journals around the world and he served as a joint general editor for five volumes of the Yearbook on Islamic and Middle Eastern Law.

In his law practice, he is perhaps best known for bringing the case of Victims of Sabra and Shatila v. Ariel Sharon et al. under the law of universal jurisdiction in Belgium, where he won a judgment against the accused before a change in Belgian law removed the jurisdiction of the court. As a democratic activist, he was involved with the Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein, even spending time in an Iranian jail after organising international monitoring of the first free elections ever in Iraq, in May 1992. Mallat helped establish the ME regional office of Amnesty International in Beirut in 1999 for which his office has acted since as its legal counsel. He is a frequent op-ed contributor in newspapers ranging from the Nahar (Lebanon) to the New York Times, and has held research and teaching positions at Yale Law School, Virginia Law School, the U. of Lyon, the Library of Congress, the Islamic University in Lebanon and the U. of California Boalt School of Law. He is currently at Princeton University where he is a Visiting Professor in the Woodrow Wilson School, Fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs, Fellow in the University Center for Human Values, Fellow in the Program in International and Regional Studies and a Distinguished Visitor in the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice.

Publications
Introduction to Middle Eastern Law by Chibli Mallat
(Oxford University Press, Forthcoming 2007)

This book provides an introduction to the laws of the Middle East, defining the contours of a field of study that deserves to be called 'Middle Eastern law'. It introduces Middle Eastern law as a reflection of legal styles, many of which are shared by Islamic law and the laws of Christian and Jewish Near Eastern communities. It offers a detailed survey of the foundations of Middle Eastern Law, using court archives and an array of legal sources from the earliest records of Hammurabi to the massive compendia of law in the Islamic classical age through to the latest decisions of Middle Eastern high courts. It focuses on the way legislators and courts conceive of law and apply it in the Middle East. It builds on the author's extensive legal practice, with the aim of introducing the Middle Eastern law's main sources and concepts in a manner accessible to non-specialist legal scholars and practitioners alike.

The book begins with an exploration of the depth and variety of Middle Eastern law, introducing the concepts of shari'a, fiqh, and qanun, (which all mean 'law'), and dwelling on Islamic law as the 'common law' of the Middle East. It provides a historical introduction to the contemporary Middle East, exploring political systems, constitutional law, judicial review, the laws of tort and obligations, commercial law (including Islamic banking, company law, capital markets, and commercial arbitration); and examines legislative reform in family law and the position of women in the legal system. The author considers the interaction between Islamic and Western laws and includes a bibliography designed for further research into the jurisdictions and themes explored throughout the book.