On Thursday, November 18, Casa Árabe hosted this international seminar about the role of hydrocarbons in shaping states and the delimiting their borders in the Middle East, focusing on Iraq, in particular. The session was also streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz4yVLlE0zo Coinciding with the hundredth anniversary of the Cairo Conference (1921), which discussed the drawing of borders and the creation of the new states in the region that would come to be known as the Middle East, Casa Árabe, with the cooperation of the University of Barcelona’s Antoni Capmany Study Center, organized this seminar on “Borders and oil in the formation of Arab States: 100 years after the Cairo Conference (1921),” the purpose of which is to begin a series of activities and joint work on the past and present of the Arab world’s Political Economy. From a historical perspective, the seminar performed a political-economic analysis of the time when Iraq was created, and its evolution throughout later years, with a special emphasis on the importance of times after World War One, during the creation of its borders and state, with the objective of integrating the resources of this territory and its economy into the world’s capitalist system and getting its oil to flow within the then-new international oil system.? The seminar began with an introductory session given by?Aurelia Mañé Estrada, a professor of Economic Policy at the University of Barcelona (UB) on “Borders, mandates and oil in shaping the Middle East,” with the participation of Carmen Rodríguez López, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid as a moderator, and Gonzalo Escribano Francés, a professor of Political Economics at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) and the director of the Energy and Climate Change Program at the Real Instituto Elcano, in the comments and first reaction portion of the seminar.? A second session, organized as part of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 3 program, held in collaboration with the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) bachelor’s degree program in International Relations and the UAM bachelor’s degree program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, was devoted in particular to Iraq, featuring a talk by Nida Alahmad, a professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, on “State, oil and war in the formation of Iraq,” moderated by Olivia Orozco de la Torre, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator, as well as the participation of Isaías Barreñada Bajo, a professor of International Relations at the UCM, who gave the initial comments and reaction. More information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/borders-and-oil-in-the-formation-of-arab-states-100-years-after-the-cairo-conference-1921 Photo: Cairo Conference (1921). Published in "The Letters of Gertrude Bell, volume II" in 1927.