There has been a steady increase of protests and opposition against the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the past two years. Many of these protests have been sectarian and the government response to them has only further inflamed sectarianism. Most observers take Iraq’s sectarian politics as a given blaming political leaders or parties. This presentation alternatively explores whether Iraq’s legal framework and the emergence of its political institutions post 2005 fueled sectarian tensions in the country. Did the founding laws of the new Iraqi state leave fundamental divisions in national identity among the population unresolved? If so, did the state and the political process implemented by the laws become too inflexible to contain the political tensions that spilled into the streets in the form of sectarian violence? I answer these questions by borrowing from critical legal studies and literature on nationalism and national identity formation, to examine founding legal mandates in Iraq. Specifically the presentation looks at the Transitional Administrative Law (the Iraqi constitution put forward by the interim Coalition Provisional Authority), two drafts of the constitution (June and July of 2005) as well as the permanent Iraqi constitution eventually ratified in October 2005, and other supporting laws that govern issues of sovereignty and nationality in Iraq. I argue that the overlapping, contradictory conceptualizations of national identity and bureaucratic sovereignty reproduce sectarian tensions in Iraq. As the Iraqi state was being reconstructed during the U.S. occupation, there were contending visions for the emerging state. The writing of the constitution was hurried by the American administration for to its own domestic political demands. This prevented differences from being resolved in the drafting process. The 2005 permanent Iraqi constitution and supporting national laws called for both a nation-state (where Iraqis are seen as one nation), and a multi-national state (where many nations are governed by one Iraqi state). Diverse bureaucratic jurisdictions within Iraq– federal, regional, and provincial– are at times also based on competing national identities (e.g. Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, etc.). The drafting of these laws, hence only postponed differences that became increasingly sectarian and nationalistic. Political parties with different conception of the nation-state were forced by American administration to form governments but failed to govern together often-creating parallel governing institutions. Since the state was set up and the constitution already written, there was little room for flexibility within the political process, pushing these tensions into the streets.