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This dissertation delves into the legal and labour history of Hashemite Iraq (c. 1921-1958) to explore the role international law and its institutions played in Iraqs state formation, as well as, the imperial control of the semi-peripheral region of the Middle East. By highlighting the historical specificity of the semi-periphery in international legal history, it shows how Iraq was a laboratory for experimentation with the concept of sovereignty. A unique doctrine of semi-peripheral sovereignty was skillfully developed by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations in Geneva and embedded in the 1930 Anglo-Iraq Treaty to ensure Iraqs independence in 1932 maintained geopolitical and imperial interests that were specific to the region, especially the extraction, production and transportation of Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean. The material effects of this international legal doctrine on the everyday lives of working class Iraqis is traced by looking at how it intersected with British imperial law, land law, the transnational law of oil concessions and pipeline agreements, criminal law and emergency law. The spaces and semi-colonial enclaves of capitalist production and trade of the oil fields in Kirkuk, the railways in Baghdad and the Port of Basra, and their corresponding governing structures are then detailed in micro-histories with the aim of analyzing the manner in which the oil, port and railway workers organized against the semi-colonial and imperial legality that was imposed upon them. The dissertation ends with an analysis of the massive 1948 Wathba uprising against the revision of the 1930 Anglo-Iraq Treaty. The Wathba, successfully prevented the re-imposition of imperialism in Iraq, and would turn into the seed of the July Revolution in 1958. It is situated here within the wider history of decolonization in the Third World to advance a novel methodological approach of the conjuncture to understand anti-colonial and labour agency in relation to international legal history. This study illustrates that undertaking a conjunctural analysis illuminates how the agency of the ordinary peoples of the Third World influenced international legal transformation. The doctrine of semi-peripheral sovereignty and all juridical forms of semi-colonialism would be unequivocally rejected through the Iraqi contribution to the drafting of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. This dissertation therefore reveals the unique constitutive relationship between international law, imperialism, and capitalism in the semi-peripheral Middle East, while maintaining the importance of integrating the history of class formation, agency and labour into international legal history. The material effects of this international legal doctrine on the everyday lives of working class Iraqis is traced by looking at how it intersected with British imperial law, land law, the transnational law of oil concessions and pipeline agreements, criminal law and emergency law. The spaces and semi-colonial enclaves of capitalist production and trade of the oil fields in Kirkuk, the railways in Baghdad and the Port of Basra, and its corresponding governing structures are then detailed in micro-histories with the aim of analyzing the manner in which the oil, port and railway workers organized against the semi-colonial and imperial legality that was imposed upon them. The dissertation ends with an analysis of the massive 1948 Wathba uprising against the revision of the 1930 Anglo-Iraq Treaty. The Wathba, successfully prevented the re-imposition of imperialism in Iraq, and would turn into the seed of the July Revolution in 1958. It is situated here within the wider history of decolonization in the Third World to advance a novel methodological approach of the conjuncture in relation to understanding anti-colonial and labour agency in international legal history. This dissertation illustrates that undertaking a conjunctural analysis illuminates how the agency of the ordinary peoples of the Third World influenced international legal transformation. The doctrine of semi-peripheral sovereignty and all juridical forms of semi-colonialism would be unequivocally rejected through the Iraqi contribution to the drafting of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. This dissertation therefore reveals the unique constitutive relationship between international law, imperialism, and capitalism in the semi-peripheral Middle East, while maintaining the importance of integrating the history of class formation, agency and labour into international legal history.

Workers with temporary immigration status have become the economic reality in several countries, as these workers provide a temporally mobile, cheap workforce that is responsive to economic vicissitudes and anti-immigration sentiment. Temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in low-wage sectors such as agriculture are tied to a single employer, have no access to their family and to permanent residence, and face overwhelming barriers in accessing justice. TFWs spend years residing and working outside of their country of nationality and are unable to be self-sovereign agents either in their countries of origin (because of lack of residence) or in their countries of sojourn (because of lack of nationality). While there have been instances where TFWs were able to make individual legal claims for labor violations in the country of sojourn, collective mobilization against the TFW program itself is exceptional. Collective mobilization represents acting as (partial) citizens, as the claims resemble self-determination claims on behalf of the entire TFW collectivity. How do TFWs and their allies, against all odds, mobilize the law to make collective claims and produce citizenship from below?In this research, I critically examine Israel and Canada, countries that have very similar TFW programs in agriculture but represent two contrasting types of legal mobilization against these programs. Israel is a case of “top-down” constitutional litigation where the results were court-ordered changes to the TFW program. Canada represents a case of legal mobilization “from below” where law is used subversively as a tool for larger political action. What explains the different pathways to legal mobilization in Israel and Canada?In addition to contributing new empirical data and theoretical conceptualizations of the different ways in which the law can be mobilized, my dissertation combines legal mobilization and social movement theories to offer an analytical framework to understand what affects the type of legal mobilization. TFW mobilization is situated in two broad social movements, labor movements and migrant rights/citizenship movements. I frame legal mobilization in the TFW context as a form of anti-hegemonic, contentious collective action and show the complex interactions between the political and discursive environment (political opportunity structure), the legal environment, and the support structure for mobilization (resource organizations).I show that despite barriers to access and courts' unwillingness to overturn immigration law, the law can be collectively mobilized on behalf of TFWs. The pathways to legal mobilization depend on legal opportunities and type of resource support. Constitutional litigation is initiated by cause-driven lawyers or legal organizations, but their framing of issues is constrained. Grassroots, solidarity organizations, in contrast, use the law as a tool for the broader goals of worker mobilization and social change. With the support of such organizations, TFWs are able to articulate their demands collectively, engage in direct action and political mobilization, and demand changes to the TFW program. My comparative historical analysis of Israel and Canada shows that legal and discursive strategies, however, depend on the historical political legacies and current political and economic environments. Elite power and ideological discourses are entrenched and distributed in the context of TFW programs. Political contestation impacts constitutional challenges as well as grassroots mobilization. My dissertation further adds to citizenship theory in three ways. First, it disrupts prevalent myths about the agency of TFWs and their lack of rights consciousness. Second, it offers the possibilities for meaningful change to TFW programs and advances an agentic theory on access to citizenship. Lastly, it adds grist to the conception of “citizenship from below” through the evidence of jurisgenerative practices of TFWs.