The following study addresses the topic “Legislative Functions of Arab legislatures: A Comparative Study”, a topic in which research is important due to the relative lack of studies addressing this topic and due to existent studies’ largely dispersed status. Arab parliamentary life is a topic on which few scientific studies exist compared to a topic such as the Arab-Israeli conflict—not to mention the near total absence of large research projects addressing this topic. Moreover, this topic impacts a main aspect of Arab policy, one that requires development if we as Arabs seriously plan to launch ourselves into the course of the 21st century with confident steps supported by a solid foundation.

It is from here that the significance of this seminar stems. Organized by the United Nations Development Program in cooperation with the Lebanese parliament, this seminar constitutes an important step toward developing focus on parliamentary studies in the Arab Nation.

Obvious restrictions have limited the analysis in this study, the most important being the relatively short time period allowed for completing it, let alone that conducting it would ideally involve a research team in which each member would be in charge of thoroughly researching one of the cases under study by directly referring to parliamentary minutes. Ideally, the comparative study would be written only after that, following the availability of individual case studies conducted according to unified research procedures, thus facilitating comparison.

However, due to the relative shortage of time and the inability to form a research team, a number of cases were chosen based on their representational capability of Arab parliamentary experiences (Egyptian, Yemeni, Lebanese, Kuwaiti, and Moroccan). This representation may be incomplete, yet there is reason to assume that these cases represent—though only to a certain extent—the various political regimes of the Arab Nation’s geographic regions. It is worth mentioning that the regimes that do not have—by virtue of a constitutional text or law—a legislative power in the conventional meaning of the term were excluded. By the same logic, similarly excluded were parliamentary councils that have no real legislative power or those that exercise an incomplete one.

Another restriction imposed itself on the analysis in this study; namely, the relative lack of previous studies on these cases and the lack of opportunities to acquire parliamentary minutes in them, which force the analysis to be made based on the available material. This is why the close reader will note that despite the existence of obvious common characteristics in topic treatment, it is not possible to claim that this treatment has occurred based on the same analytical sequence in all cases. However, there is reason to assume that the content of analysis with regard to different cases makes it possible to find a viable basis for comparison.

Despite all these considerations, I believe that this study can truly be described as an exploratory one. It should be followed, after being submitted for discussion in this seminar and in light of the feedback it generates, by an attempt at developing it towards conducting a comprehensive communal methodological study of the Arab Nation’s parliamentary life, for which a sufficient number of researchers would be available, as well as sufficient time and the possibility of acquiring the earliest parliamentary documents. These conditions need to be met to achieve this effort’s intended purpose: developing Arab parliamentary life and guaranteeing a better democratic future for the Arab Nation.

This study consists of five sections, each of which addresses a study case, followed by a conclusion comprising a comparative summary of study results.