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Feisal al-Istrabadi

Former Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations

Director, Center for the Study of the Middle East and Professor of Practice, Indiana University

Amb. Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University—Bloomington, where he is also professor of the practice of international law and diplomacy at the Maurer School of Law and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. From 2004 to 2010 he represented Iraq at the United Nations, having previously acted as legal advisor to the Iraqi Foreign Minister during the negotiations for U.N. Security Council resolution 1546 recognizing Iraq’s re-assertion of its sovereignty. In 2003-04, he was principal legal drafter of Iraq's interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law, and was advisor on constitutional and legal affairs to Dr. Adnan Pachachi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council Presidency.

Al-Istrabadi’s book, The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications, edited with Sumit Ganguly, was published in 2018 by Brookings. His monograph, The Iraqi Supreme Criminal Tribunal: National and International Dimensions, assessing the trials of prominent members of Iraq’s previous regime, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. Ambassador al-Istrabadi is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Baidoa, Somalia

Makeshift, temporary shelter made of plastic and clothing at a refugee center in Baidoa, Somalia.