It is a great shame that the country that counts amongst its founders lawyers like Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Zafrullah Khan today finds itself without adequate representation and legal counsel at various international forums when it comes to commercial matters, being handed defeat after defeat. Many of Pakistan’s woes in the field of international commercial arbitration stem from a string of decisions by the Supreme Court of Pakistan taken under Chaudhry Iftikhar’s stewardship. The Karkey Karadeniz case has captured headlines because International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes or ICSID as it is known to international lawyers has ruled definitively against Pakistan and expressed serious reservations about the Supreme Court’s judgment from 2012 which led to the dispute. Obviously much of it is kept under a shroud of secrecy so much so that we are not aware of the actual settlement amount, which is rumoured to be close to US $ 800 million. The Karkey Karadeniz Electrik Uterim is a Turkish company that was hired to provide rental power plants through its ships docked in Pakistani ports. But if the Karkey decision is bad enough, brace yourself for the Tethyan Copper Company Pty Limited emanating out of the disastrous Reko Diq project where rumours are that an estimated US $ 11.5 billion may be awarded against Pakistan. Again at the root of the dispute is a decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan from the Chaudhry Court. Then there is the less heard about Broadsheet case. National Accountability Bureau in the first year of its existence had hired the services Broadsheet, a company incorporated in the Isle of Mann, to recover stolen assets of Pakistanis abroad. What is interesting is that the said Broadsheet company had been in existence of a total of 40 days at the time of the signing of the agreement and had 200 pounds as its capital stock. In 2013 Broadsheet has brought a claim against NAB for unpaid fees worth US $ 500 million in the International Court of Arbitration. It gets even more curious when one considers that there is now a law firm involved, which has an outstanding claim of US $76 million against the NAB. None of these details are made public. People are kept ignorant of the decisions made at the highest places behind closed doors. In order to defend Pakistan in aforementioned Karkey case, the then Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt hired the services of Allen and Overy London. This was despite the fact that the former attorney general Makhdum Ali Khan, a giant amongst lawyers, had offered his services free of cost. It seems that we as Pakistanis are incapable of taking the business of law seriously ourselves. This country produced one of the greatest international jurists in history in form of Sir Zafrullah Khan but who we spurned and even hounded out of the country despite his stellar record. Genuine talent hungry to defend Pakistan and its cause internationally is seldom allowed to flourish or allowed within reach of such matters. Cases are distributed as patronage and on the basis of connections. No it is not the business of the state whether anybody considers themselves a Muslim or not. These are not preoccupations of a modern state. A modern state has to deal with modern things, like economy, fundamental rights and equality And then there is a dearth of talent to begin with. There is no proper legal education system in the country. Lawyers are churned out on the basis of outdated three year law degrees comprising rote memorization of a few statutes written late 19th and early 20th century. A proposal to establish the National Law University — an institution committed to research in law — was shot down by none other than Dr Babar Awan, a lawyer himself. He must have had good reasons for it but those reasons are not entirely obvious at first glance. Pakistan needs world class lawyers and jurists. We need Sir Zafrullah Khans and Dr B R Ambedkars if we want to make something of ourselves and stand with respect and dignity in the comity of nations. For that we have to get our priorities straight. The fusion of religion with politics and law in particular has rendered us incapable of setting those up. We have set up our courts as inquisitorial tribunals concerned more with sin and religious observances of individuals than things — yes secular things — which ought to concern the state. No it is not the business of the state as to what opinion an individual holds about a particular religion. No it is not the business of the state that some person x considers himself or herself a Muslim or not. These are not preoccupations of a modern state. A modern state has to deal with modern things, like economy, fundamental rights, equality. Instead our state carries the burden of itself of being some sort of modern caliphate which it is not. Repeat these words to yourself dear reader. Pakistan is not a caliphate. Pakistan is not a theocracy. It is a nation state founded by a British Act of Parliament, recognized by the United Nations and therefore the international law. It must, therefore, abandon all such flights of fancy, of theocracy, of jihad and global Islamic revolution and of ideological Islamism and instead learn to exist as a modern state in the modern world. Only then can we produce a class of men and women who would defend the legitimate secular and worldly interests of this country. Till then we will remain the losers on every international forum. The writer is a practising lawyer. He blogs at http://globallegalforum.blogspot.com and his twitter handle is @therealylh Published in Daily Times, October 3rd 2017.