The College of Law at the University of Al-Qadisiyah has held the symposium entitled (Exploiting the inclusion of the marshes in the World Heritage to protect Iraq’s shares in the Tigris and Euphrates), lectured by M. Soudad Taha Jadoua and M. Basil Abbas Ali and moderated by Prof. Dr. Fadel Jubeir.

       The symposium aims at demonstrating the global importance of the marshes as part of the world heritage of humanity, since their inclusion in the World Heritage List, but they still suffer from constant drought that threatens their existence, and their inclusion in the world heritage can be exploited to exert international legal pressure on Turkey, to preserve Iraq’s shares in The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as Turkey is a party to the same convention (Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972).

       The most important conclusions of the symposium are: the global importance of the Iraqi marshes as a world heritage, and the necessity of preserving them as well as the necessity of preserving Iraq’s water shares – in the absence of an agreement text between Iraq and the upstream countries – based on the customary rules such as the rule of acquired historical rights, and the countries sharing the river share the benefits and damages resulting from it, fluctuations in river levels and others.

       The most important recommendations of the symposium are: the need for Iraq to use diplomatic and legal pressure through the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on the upstream countries, in order to preserve the marshes as part of the world heritage as well as in the latest report of Iraq submitted to the World Heritage Committee for the year 2023, and in previous reports on the Iraqi marshes, Iraq did not demand that the marshes be included on the List of World Heritage in danger, despite their area is decreasing to less than 5%. Therefore, the Committee recommends that the Iraqi government to submit a request to the above-mentioned committee to have the marshes listed as World Heritage in danger.