No matter how you slice it, transitional justice will at times exclude certain groups of victims at the expense of others. This is as true for Syria as it is in many other contexts, especially when the state – without meaningful institutional reform – is the primary driver and shaper of transitional justice processes. While calls for an inclusive transitional justice that serves all Syrians are warranted, they raise unrealistic expectations of what transitional justice can effectively achieve in the short term following decades of authoritarian rule.
Since the fall of Assad in December 2024, transitional justice has become part of the daily vernacular amongst Syrians and commentators on Syria. It is important to deepen those conversations by asking the right questions about what transitional justice processes can achieve in the Syrian context and within what time frames.
Drawing on cautionary lessons from other contexts in the Arab region is also important, notably in Egypt and Tunisia, given how transitional justice processes there have gone awfully wrong. Syrian civil society and victims’ communities can at least mitigate the misuse and abuse of transitional justice by taking an approach that is less reactive and more pre-emptive when the state takes issues into its own hands.
Doing so first requires the acknowledgment of at least three, perhaps uncomfortable, realities. First, a transitional justice in Syria that proclaims inclusivity will be set up for failure so long as it remains a state-centric process. Political transitions are rarely a clean break with the past, leaving transitional and post-transitional governments in situations where they make difficult and often controversial political decisions that seek to reckon with a selective past in order to protect their present and future authority.
For instance, after the fall of Argentina’s military dictatorship and a few successful trials of the junta leaders, the government of President Alfonsín passed laws that limited the pursuit of criminal accountability in response to threats of a military rebellion. Egypt and Tunisia, as will be explained below, passed so-called “reconciliation” laws with former dictatorship allies that granted them protection from prosecution in exchange for a return of a portion of their assets to the state. They also pursued politicized prosecutions of former leaders, many of which resulted in questionable releases and light sentences. In Libya, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and others continue to escape the International Criminal Court arrest warrants that have targeted them. In so-called established democracies such as the United States and Canada, indigenous and other marginalized groups continue to face systemic racism and inequality. So, what is a suitable approach to address this persistent problem of (non)inclusivity?
Secondly, domestic prosecutions that are fair and effective cannot take place within the current judicial climate in Syria, as they require reform that will take years to materialize. How can we address the popular desire for prosecutions that we so often see in new transitional contexts, knowing that it is unlikely to be met, as we saw in other parts of the Arab region and beyond?
Third, a transitional justice that lays the foundation for long-term reconciliation is a long and arduous process that must grapple with an evolving political landscape and shifting justice expectations among Syrians. How can long-term reconciliation efforts be better anchored in Syria’s overall transitional justice process, especially given the current precarious political situation and the need to not only address the past but also present challenges and abuses?
Inclusivity Lies in Understanding Justice Expectations
Transitional justice is a set of processes that a society emerging from war or oppressive rule undertakes to address the past for the sake of building a more peaceful, just, and stable future. This is done in several ways, including through criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, memorialization initiatives, and institutional reform.
A core concern in Syria’s transition is the management of victims’ justice expectations. This includes the families of the disappeared, torture victims, victims of sexual violence, the wounded and handicapped, those who were displaced or had their properties confiscated, and broader societal groups, from minorities to residents of particular areas, who suffered from the dictatorship and the conflict. One major challenge is the impossibility of a single unifying narrative regarding the past. The current transitional period, where sectarian narratives and tensions are high, is a product of a longer and deeper history of unresolved struggles in Syria that predate the fall of Assad.
It is difficult to summarize the major dividing issues here, but they include an intersection of sectarian, socio-economic, and political tensions that – far from being static – have and continue to evolve over time.
Addressing this past will not necessarily produce a shared narrative that fosters reconciliation. Instead, reconciliation will need to take place within a context marked by the existence of multiple truths. One community’s experience of injustice and grievance is another community’s experience of redemption and justice.
So how does such a society, with all its complexities, begin to put into place reconciliation and transitional justice initiatives? How can Syrians secure safe spaces for the co-existence of these diverse experiences that produce multiple narratives about the past and present?
There are no easy answers to this, but at a basic level, dogmatic promises of transitional justice (“Justice and reconciliation for all! Now!”) must be replaced with a transitional justice that is more rooted in the social, political, and cultural realities within Syria’s 14 governorates. That way, there is inclusivity in efforts to understand and document the justice expectations of Syria’s various communities as an important first step.
To an extent, this is already happening. Local and regional civil society and administrative actors in Syria’s governorates have been involved in resolving disputes and in providing justice remedies where the state institutions have either failed or have been completely absent. Where mayors have been inefficient, local councils and activists have built social and political structures that are trying to address local needs.
To mitigate the dangers of a transitional justice that may worsen the exclusion of certain Syrian communities, these local networks and councils who have the experience of filling in the social and political vacuums under Assad should begin to work with independent researchers to understand not only the extent of violations suffered, but also the nature of the justice expectations within and across the 14 governorates and the communities within them. The research design will, of course, be important, but could include focus groups with various communities and age groups within each governorate. Affected individuals and groups could explain, for instance, what they regard as “reconciliation” or “reparations” or “accountability” without the researchers imposing pre-established definitions, as international organizations unfortunately so often do.
Crucially, a society’s justice expectations could change over time. Longitudinal studies can be very effective in helping us understand these shifts in justice needs. For example, in David Backer’s research in South Africa, he conducted two panel surveys of 153 victims of the apartheid era. The panel surveys took place five years apart: one in 2002-2003 and the other in 2008. The findings show that while the victims were initially supportive of the conditional amnesties issued by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the same victims became increasingly disappointed in the outcome of these amnesties and instead supported accountability, even if it risks stability. Such longitudinal studies are going to be very important for Syria.
At a broader level, other transitional justice experiences in the Arab region, such as in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, demonstrate that it is vital to establish transitional justice processes that are integrated into Syria’s multiple transitions rather than ones that mistakenly operate as though there is one overarching political transition heading in one clearly defined direction. This is especially important in contexts where diverse communities exist and, for the first time in a very long time (and at least for now), can vocalize their political views more freely.
The Pursuit of Transitional Justice Should Not Be Overly State-Centric
Few states, if any, exhibit the political will to implement transitional justice processes that are genuinely inclusive. For Syria’s transitional justice to stand a chance at providing an effective remedy for Syrians, it is important to avoid an overreliance on the state to lead all, or even most, transitional justice processes. Syria’s interim government is already overburdened with a set of hefty and urgent tasks, such as the delivery of basic services. And, if we consider the standard toolkit advanced by many international organizations, institutional reform is one of the pillars of transitional justice.
Importantly, the Syrian judiciary and criminal code must be reformed, a process that will take years and will delay high-level domestic prosecutions, for which so many Syrians have expressed a strong desire. Adding the full transitional justice itinerary to the interim government’s plate – and expecting it to be done in an effective manner – is neither realistic nor desirable. This is especially so, given the political priorities of the transitional government, which has and will continue to utilize the language and the tools of transitional justice to advance its own political interests. In effect, the state needs to reform itself to be able to put in place an effective transitional justice. Such reform, however, is a lengthy process. Still, this does not mean that victims must wait for a reformed state apparatus before they are able to seek justice.
A less state-centric transitional justice in Syria does not mean the state’s role should be sidelined. But, given the fragility of Syria’s transition as well as the cautionary tales from other transitional contexts in the Arab region, decentralized actors such as Syrian civil society, local social and political actors, and Syria’s universities should drive the transitional justice agenda, rather than simply react to steps taken by the Al Sharaa government. While political divides and weak legitimacy continue to plague some of these actors, this is neither exceptional nor a death knell for what is necessarily going to be a very long process of building credibility and overcoming tensions that challenge efforts toward effective mobilization.
Indeed, several Syrian civil society groups have advanced detailed roadmaps for truth, reconciliation, and justice in Syria. Among them are the Syrian Network for Human Rights, as well as the Syrian Legal Development Programme’s recent document outlining the general principles for transitional justice in Syria, to which 61 Syrian organizations are signatories. Independent Syrian experts, such as Mansour Omari, have also presented important recommendations for effective structures that must be put in place to allow for a meaningful transitional justice process to take root.
Process over Outcome: Lessons from Regional Transitional Justice Experiences
All Syrian victims and their families have the right to swift justice after decades of oppression and following the recent violent atrocities. Neither societies in transition nor transitional justice itself, however, can afford to prioritize outcome over process if they are to stand a chance at adequately addressing Syria’s justice needs. They must come to terms with the reality of a long, arduous process of transitional justice that must adapt to a constantly changing political landscape in Syria. This requires the involvement of politically astute transitional justice actors from civil society, government, and academia. It also requires a lot of patience as regional lessons have, often painfully, shown.
In the months immediately following the ouster of leaders in places like Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, protesters demanded justice, and, like Syria, there were strong calls for criminal prosecutions. The states’ responses to these demands in part resulted in some high-level and politicized criminal prosecutions with limited charges and, eventually, lenient sentences and questionable releases. Urgent demands for swift prosecutions in Syria are reminiscent of similar demands during the ouster of dictators in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. Effective prosecutions are crucial to bring closure and a sense of redemption for victims and their families. They also have symbolic importance as a society attempts to prevent a repetition of its painful past by making an important statement: such atrocities must never happen again.
The challenge here is reconciling victims’ desire to see spectacular images of their oppressors behind bars with the impossibility of effective prosecutions in a politically charged transition that is not equipped with a strong and independent judiciary. Of course, hybrid or international tribunals could – and have in other contexts – attempted to resolve this common problem. But they are costly, they take time, and are usually limited to a set of international crimes that may not include critical crimes that affected so many Syrians, such as land and property theft. Other accountability options exist, some of which can also be visually impactful, such as video testimonies by perpetrators or people’s tribunals.
For instance, in 2017, the Tunisian former first lady’s nephew and wealthy businessman, Imed Trabelsi, gave a videotaped testimony that was aired from his prison cell to millions of Tunisian viewers. Delivered in his own words and within the context of Tunisia’s truth commission, Trabelsi’s video testimony contained details of a complex web of corruption, most of which is unlikely to have surfaced in a regular trial. He was sentenced to a total of over 100 years in prison. Such truth-seeking that involves perpetrators could be almost as redeeming as, and in certain instances more impactful than, prosecutions, as it could help plant the seeds for future reconciliation between polarized communities.
Following the ouster of the Egyptian, Libyan, and Tunisian dictators, the interim and post-transition authorities struck questionable “reconciliation” and “economic recovery” deals with corrupt business tycoons who were closely allied with the ousted governments. Recently, the interim government in Syria struck deals with businessmen with strong links to ousted President Assad. These settlements involve the return of large assets to the state to benefit the Syrian economy, while several of the controversial businessmen have been granted protection from accountability.
Such a rebranding and gradual takeover of Assad’s economic oligarchies are a déjà-vu for Egyptians and Tunisians in particular, where so-called reconciliation initiatives required business tycoons to return a portion of their assets in exchange for protection against prosecution, despite their decades-long complicity in the oppression wrought by these countries’ dictatorships. While some may view such deals as a necessary and realistic approach to recover parts of the economy, others are resentful that the state made such decisions without consulting those who were directly impacted by the actions of such business tycoons over decades. If anything, Syrian civil society should anticipate such political and economic deals by presenting an economic recovery approach that is acceptable to victims and the broader society, rather than react to decrees that have already been issued.
A Time and Place for Prosecutions?
Victims and their families want closure. For some, that closure might be prosecutorial justice, while for others it is revenge killings, and yet for others it is forgiveness. Justice is deeply personal. As we have seen in many political transitions both in the Arab region and beyond, people are often drawn to prosecutions. One of the reasons for this is that trials are visually powerful. The spectacle of prosecutions – seeing the ones who ordered your torture in the dock – brings a sense of satisfaction to victims and victimized communities.
To an extent, the universal jurisdiction cases in several European countries, where several Syrian individuals have been put on trial, have been carrying the work of criminal accountability in the current absence of any other international or Syrian judicial action. Syrian lawyers and civil society have also made possible the work of other international mechanisms to investigate and document crimes committed in Syria, such as the IIIM.
If domestic prosecutions in Syria are unlikely to be fair and effective, there could be much more to lose rather than gain from going ahead with them anyway. Over the last decade and a half, Syrian civil society has already made significant justice accomplishments that should not be forfeited at the expense of swift prosecutions. They led, for example, the effort since the start of the 2011 war to document violations in what became the most well-documented war in history. Such documentation fulfills multiple transitional justice aims such as building criminal cases, truth-seeking, memorialization, and education.
Moreover, civil society organizations that operated almost entirely from the diaspora are now establishing a larger and more institutionalized presence in Syria as they gradually return to a post-Assad context that has, at least for now, opened up such a space. The resistance they built through their tireless efforts to document violations throughout the war is now taking up more space and visibility inside Syria. This is a feat that would not have been possible without Syrian civil society’s successful building of a resistance and transitional justice movement both in the diaspora and in Syria under nightmarish conditions.
It would be a shame for hasty prosecutions to undo a lot of this work that Syria’s civil society organizations have accomplished over the last decade and a half. That said, the current impossibility of effective domestic prosecutions does not mean that there can be no acceptable accountability efforts in the meantime. Lingering grievances and the increase in revenge killings in Syria will only worsen without immediate measures that, at the very least, put in place security measures to protect victims from further abuses and that hold perpetrators from all sides accountable. The government’s fact-finding committees’ investigations into the March 2025 coastal and July 2025 Sweida killings, as well as the subsequent detentions, are fundamental first steps to address such atrocities. But in the long term, the prevention of further revenge killings will require safe spaces for a Syrian society that is reeling from decades of violence to regularly convene and build trust over time and within a humanizing context.
Syria’s Universities as Safe Spaces for Transitional Justice Discussions
In a television interview in February 2025, Syrian interim president Ahmed Al Sharaa said, “There is a delicate line between transitional justice and civil peace. We will pursue all those who have committed crimes against the Syrian people, especially the key figures.”
Transitional justice experts and practitioners have long grappled with this classic “peace vs. justice” dilemma in societies undergoing a fragile transition. The current moment in Syria brings this peace vs. justice dilemma into sharp relief – and quite literally, too, through the establishment of committees for civil peace, the transitional justice commission, and the commission for missing persons.
But there must be spaces in which the civil society and local governance actors who led these various initiatives can convene. One potentially powerful safe space for such interactions and exchanges is universities. Similar to Track II mediation, transitional justice requires dialogue and exchanges between groups of people who, for lack of a better description, absolutely despise one another. Universities or academic venues could serve as effective neutral spaces, just as they sometimes do for Track II mediation, as a way to facilitate the arduous process of finding acceptable ways to live peacefully.
A lot of the work involved in transitional justice processes is quiet, not spectacular. But politicians, especially new and transitional ones, must grapple with the need to show a form of spectacularity and the need to quietly and slowly build trust through everyday processes that may not be media-worthy.
The transitional justice academic and policy worlds take up the arduous work of picking apart these seemingly mundane processes, but they often do so either far from the sites where they are needed, or within confined spaces to avoid inflaming further polarization. Universities and other higher education institutions across Syria could play an important convening role where academics, practitioners, representatives from multiple communities, victims and their families, civil society, and policymakers could begin to slowly tackle the sensitivities of transitional justice in Syria through sustained, regular, and organized discussions that carefully and gradually draw multiple communities together in one room.
Ultimately, universities could shepherd a research process that seeks to establish a good understanding of victims’ needs while also raising awareness about what is possible in the short, medium, and long term, given Syria’s existing resources and capacities. Syrian civil society and researchers would have the space to collaborate and design a timeline of evaluations assessing victims’ justice expectations. These evaluations would take place, for instance, every 3-5 years, after which the transitional justice actors involved would reconvene and reassess the status of justice expectations and what policies are required to deliver on them in Syria.
Political transitions are not linear. They are often chaotic, fluid, and multi-directional. Attention to the evolving political landscape and to the changing justice needs of Syria’s victims and communities would help to ensure more meaningful policies are in place. They would also cultivate a culture of grassroots justice building that is not forced into a foreign and state-centric transitional justice box that is ridden with unhelpful dogma.
The views represented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arab Reform Initiative, its staff, or its board.
