Founder of Kurdistan Foundation Areen Barzani earns Master of Laws at The City Law School
The LLM in Dispute Resolution, conferred in London in July, is Areen Masrour Barzani's third qualification since 2023 and his first in law.
LONDON (Kurdistan24) - Areen Masrour Barzani has received a Master of Laws (LLM) in Dispute Resolution from City St George's, University of London. The degree was conferred at the university's graduation ceremony in London on 13 July 2026, where he graduated with the class of The City Law School.
Barzani founded the Kurdistan Foundation, an Erbil based non profit organisation, in 2024, and has since built a set of platforms and programmes around it, several of them in partnership with government bodies in the United Arab Emirates. The LLM is his first qualification in law, following a first degree in security studies and a year of officer training in the United Kingdom.
Dispute resolution is the branch of law concerned with how disagreements between entities, institutions and individuals are settled, whether in court, before an arbitrator whose decision binds both sides, or through mediation and negotiation. The City Law School's programme covers all four routes within the frameworks of procedure, evidence and ethics, and closes with a dissertation in the field. It is taught at the school's Clerkenwell campus in central London and takes one year full-time.
The specialism has grown as more commercial and institutional disputes are settled outside the courts, and London is one of its principal centres. In the 2025 International Arbitration Survey conducted by Queen Mary University of London with the law firm White & Case, 87 per cent of more than 2,400 respondents said they preferred international arbitration, alone or alongside other methods, for cross-border disputes, and London was the most frequently chosen seat, ahead of Singapore and Hong Kong.
The City Law School, which traces its origins to 1852, trains barristers and solicitors alongside its academic law degrees. City St George's is a newer name: the university was formed in 2024 when City, University of London merged with St George's, University of London.
The degree adds a legal specialisation to an academic record that has so far run through security studies and the military. Barzani graduated from the American University of Kurdistan in Duhok in 2023 with a bachelor's degree in Security and Strategic Studies, finishing as valedictorian with the highest cumulative GPA in his programme, and gave the valedictory address at the university's ceremony on 28 May 2023. In 2024 he completed Commissioning Course 233 at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating at the Sovereign's Parade on 9 August. The British Consulate General in Erbil, congratulating him at the time, described the course as a year of leadership, academic and tactical military training.
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Since Sandhurst, Barzani's work in the Kurdistan Region has been organisational. The Kurdistan Foundation, announced at a ceremony in Erbil in December 2024, was set up as an umbrella body rather than a single programme; at its launch he set out its purpose in three words: belong, build and become. Under it sit a group of platforms built for specific functions. JOBS.KRD is a careers platform linking jobseekers with employers. Volunteer.KRD matches volunteers with community projects across the Region. Empower.KRD handles education and professional training, and Climate.KRD environmental work. Alongside them the foundation runs 10 Problems 10 Solutions, which invites young people to propose answers to local problems, a Youth Hub for networking, and Ganjina, a programme that documents individuals and organisations contributing to Kurdistan's culture, education, innovation and community service.
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The foundation's international work has run through the United Arab Emirates. Through his Mesopotamia Leadership Institute, the Areen Masrour Barzani Leadership Program was developed with the UAE Government Experience Exchange Office, taking 20 emerging leaders per cohort through four months of virtual and in-person training, including attendance at the World Governments Summit in Dubai and a leadership module in Kurdistan, with a focus on modernisation, innovation and institutional excellence. Through further partnerships with the UAE he has supported the Kurdistan Coders Program, which aims to build digital and coding skills among young people in every province of the Region, and a Performance Management System project to strengthen performance monitoring across Kurdistan Regional Government departments.
The 13 July 2026 ceremony was Areen Masrour Barzani's third graduation in three years, after the American University of Kurdistan in May 2023 and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in August 2024. The three qualifications cover security studies, military leadership and law. Each bears on his current work in Erbil, where the Kurdistan Foundation, its platforms and its partnerships are operating.
Areen Masrour Barzani earned a master's degree from City St George's, University of London. pic.twitter.com/y8pan0y6Gq
— Kurdistan 24 English (@K24English) July 13, 2026