Uae-Overview Essay example

Submitted By higaum3420
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Pages: 4

United Arab Emirates politics takes place in a structure of a federal, presidential, elected monarchy in which is a federation composing of seven absolute monarchies: the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Qaiwain. The President of UAE, the head of state, is the ruler of Abu Dhabi, and the Prime Minister, the head of government, of the United Arab Emirates is the ruler of Dubai. In order to maintain an effective governance of the United Arab Emirates, the leaders of the seven emirates that make up the Federation got in an agreement to create a conditional Constitution stipulating the powers owed to the new federation institutions. As in many federal structures around the world, certain powers remained the choice of each of the individual emirates, which already had their own governing institutions prior to the establishment of the Federation. Looking closely at the ways the federal and local governments work, both separately and combined, one can easily observe the UAE’s unique combination of the traditional and modern political systems that have assured the country’s stability and foundation for development. When comparing with other Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates has reasonably very liberal laws. The country has a civil law jurisdiction; however, Shari'a or Islamic law is applied to aspects of family law, inheritance and certain criminal acts.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the largest countries in the Gulf with a land area of over 83,000 square Kilometers and a population of 4.7 million. The United Arab Emirates, in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, extends along part of the Gulf of Oman and the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. The nation is the size of Maine. The UAE is located in a tactical location next to southern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, a fundamental transport point for world crude oil. United Arab Emirates natural resources are petroleum and natural gas.
United Arab Emirates’ location will come in handy in regards to the new economic environment that the country is pursuing to transit from an oil based economy to one that focuses on tourism and commerce according to Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. In addition, the vast coastline and great number of ports that the UAE already has, gives the UAE an infrastructure that is prime for both importing and exporting goods. According to BBC News Report, the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, maintains a pro-western stance in regards to foreign policy therefore contributing to a stable economic arena both politically and economically. The United Arab Emirates owes its healthy GDP to mostly to the export of oil and gas products. Although oil has done well for the nation they have realized that oil is a natural resource and will eventually run out. Therefore, in order to fix this outcome, UAE has started to diversify the economy towards non-oil based ventures such as tourism and commerce.
As stated by the Heritage Foundation, an education and research institute, The United Arab Emirates’ economic freedom score is 67.8, making its economy the 47th freest in the 2011 Index. Its score is 0.5 point higher than last year, reflecting improvements particularly in freedom from corruption and monetary freedom. The UAE is ranked 6th out of 17 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region, and its overall