Dr. Nizar Hamzeh Publishes Research on Kuwait’s Constitutional Approach to International Law

Dr. Nizar Hamzeh, Professor of Political Science and International Law at the American University of Kuwait (AUK), has published a new scholarly article examining Kuwait’s constitutional framework for incorporating and applying international law within its domestic legal system.
 
Titled “The Constitutional Incorporation of International Law in Gulf Arab States: Kuwait’s Model of Qualified Dualism in Comparative Perspective,” the article explores how Kuwait’s constitutional system governs the relationship between international legal obligations and domestic law. The study was published in the Journal of Daoist Studies (a Scopus-indexed Q2 academic journal), Vol. 19, Special Issue 2 (2026), pp. 157–172.
 
The article represents the first systematic doctrinal study in the English-language comparative international law literature of Kuwait’s constitutional framework governing the incorporation and domestic application of international law. The research introduces the concept of “qualified dualism” as a framework for understanding Kuwait’s distinctive approach to international law. Dr. Hamzeh examines how Kuwait combines formal constitutional requirements for incorporating international treaties into domestic law with circumstances in which treaty provisions may have direct judicial applicability.
 
A central focus of the study is Article 70 of Kuwait’s Constitution, which establishes requirements concerning the ratification of treaties. The research examines how these constitutional requirements interact with judicial practice and the doctrine of self-executing treaty provisions. According to the study, this creates a distinctive relationship between international and domestic law that does not fit neatly within conventional classifications of monism and dualism.
 
The article makes three principal contributions to comparative international and constitutional law. First, it provides a systematic analysis of Kuwait’s constitutional framework governing the incorporation and domestic application of international law. Second, it develops “qualified dualism” as an analytical framework for understanding the interaction between constitutional requirements and judicial applicability. Third, it contributes a Gulf and non-Western perspective to comparative international law scholarship, providing a basis for further research into how different constitutional systems receive, interpret, and apply international legal obligations.
 
Dr. Hamzeh’s research contributes to broader scholarly discussions on constitutional law, international law, and legal systems in the Gulf, while highlighting Kuwait as an important case for understanding the diverse ways in which international law operates within domestic constitutional frameworks. The publication reflects AUK’s commitment to supporting faculty scholarship, research, and intellectual engagement with issues of significance to Kuwait and the wider region.
 
Read the full article: The Constitutional Incorporation of International Law in Gulf Arab States: Kuwait’s Model of Qualified Dualism in Comparative Perspective

Dr. Nizar Hamzeh, Professor of Political Science and International Law