Paper Trails: Michel Chiha and the Historical Origins of Lebanon’s Sectarian Constitution

Abstract This article argues that the sectarian clauses in Lebanon’s 1926 constitution, namely Articles 9 and 10, were the product of French colonial policies rooted and justified in Europe’s minority rights discourse. It relies on colonial archives, local press, and the private papers of the constitution’s presumed author, Michel Chiha (1891–1954), to demonstrate how French administrators imposed their own legal and moral framework—as seen in the League of Nations’ mandate charter and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen —at the expense of local input. The article also highlights the contingencies that led the Maronite clergy to push for Article 95, institutionalizing sectarian quotas in the allocation of public employment. Close analysis of archives and private papers shows that legal sectarianism was not inspired by local realities as much as European minority treaties, which were insensitive to the Lebanese context and premised on their assumed universality. It points to the fundamental disconnect between European models of governance and the Arabs to whom they claimed to give voice.