Editor’s Note: Razan Rashidi, a Syrian analyst and speaker, has been leading humanitarian and human rights organizations from Syria and Berlin since she joined thousands of others on the streets as part of the revolution against the Assad regime. She currently heads a human rights group, The Syria Campaign, which supports survivors of war crimes to hold authorities and the UN accountable. The group has worked with the White Helmets to expose war crimes and to push for European court cases and assist families of Syria’s disappeared. Until very recently, she used the pseudonym Laila Kiki in her human rights work to protect her family from the Syrian security services.

By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives Project

Syria faces a window of genuine opportunity: The old order is dying, and the new one has not yet been born. It is a unique time, characterized by hope and profound challenge.

Syrians are clear that a new, unified, peaceful Syria can only be built upon the foundations of legitimate, comprehensive, and inclusive transitional justice. At the heart of the new social contract now under construction must be truth, accountability, and the rule of law. Addressing the legacy of grave human rights violations, international crimes and deep societal rifts that have been caused by over a decade of conflict – on top of multiple decades of systematic authoritarianism and oppression – is a prerequisite; for Syrians, it’s non-negotiable.

Of course, the obstacles to transitional justice are complex and include overlapping layers of injustices, grievances connected to past and ongoing violence, contested territories, and competing claims to agency and legitimacy. No pathway is straightforward. Nor can the enormity of the task be underestimated. The sheer scope of the atrocities Syrians have endured and the economic devastation they now face pose serious challenges to those seeking to rebuild the country.

Reviving an economy that has contracted by over 50% during 13 years of civil war and has an estimated $250 billion in reconstruction needs is an understandable priority. Syria’s currency has lost 99% of its value. Over 90% of the country’s population now live below the poverty line. But a new Syria cannot be built on top of the rubble of a painful past: The foundations would be dangerously unstable; at any moment, the buried mines of unresolved grievance could explode. Justice simply cannot be relegated to second place.

Indeed, new research shows that, despite the severe economic hardship they are facing, young Syrians are not willing to compromise on justice. For them, reconstruction and economic revival must not supersede or eclipse efforts to achieve accountability, truth and reconciliation. Despite their desperate level of need, Syrians are clear that prosperity must not be pursued at any cost. But whether transitional justice is a priority for the interim authorities in Syria is questionable. Certainly, the picture is mixed.

Since its formation in March 2025, the interim government under the leadership of President Ahmed al-Sharaa has taken some important steps towards implementing a transitional justice process. In May 2025, two foundational transitional justice committees were established by executive decree: Decree No. 19 created the National Commission for the Missing (NCM) and Decree No. 20, the National Commission for Transitional Justice (NCTJ).

The latter is in the process of developing a national law that will define the commission’s mandate, jurisdictional boundaries, and appointment criteria. The NCM has also created an advisory committee made up of victims, victim representatives, and civil society leaders who have long been involved in the search for the disappeared. In August 2025, the Commission signed an MoU with six civil society organizations that have agreed to support the search.

However, the warning signs have been numerous and increasingly difficult to ignore. Whether steps taken by the interim authorities in the past 18 months are genuine attempts to kickstart a process of transitional justice, or box-ticking exercises designed primarily to boost diplomatic relations with the West – and the U.S. in particular – is unclear.

The use of presidential executive decrees to establish the earliest institutions of transitional justice unnecessarily undermined the legitimacy of both the bodies and the process. Both Commissions were initially established without formal consultation with victims, survivors, or civil society representatives and genuine inclusion remains limited. Despite the creation of an advisory committee, there remains little specific information about how civil society will be meaningfully involved in shaping the commission’s work. By taking steps reminiscent of the highly concentrated – and much abused – unilateral executive powers of the Assad regime, the interim authorities risk negatively impacting Syrians’ trust in the process and the long-term sustainability of its framework.

Initial indications that the intended remit of the transitional justice process may be patchy at best, and fundamentally exclusionary at worst, have dealt a further blow to its credibility. At the outset, the NCTJ stated that it would focus exclusively on the crimes perpetrated by the Assad regime, a parameter that would exclude a host of atrocities committed by other actors, such as ISIS, Russia, Iran, the international coalition to defeat ISIS, and other armed groups, including HTS and, indeed, high ranking officials within the current interim government.

Following sustained, targeted pressure from civil society – advocating for the fundamental principles of transitional justice, including that no victim can be treated differently from any other, no matter the perpetrators of the crime – the Commission temporarily widened its remit to include “crimes resulting from the Assad regime,” before quickly retreating to a more limiting “committed by.”

Even then, the NCTJ has been slow to act.  At last count, the interim government had issued arrest warrants for 4 former Assad officials and had launched investigations into 87 former counter-terrorism court judges. But there are fears that these steps are largely symbolic; certainly, they seem to be largely unconnected with the central task of the Commission. War criminals continue to enjoy impunity, whether in Moscow, other parts of the world, or in Syria itself. Settlements and opaque plea deals with former Assad cronies, plus trials of regime-linked figures, continue to happen outside of any transitional justice framework.

The first trial of a senior Assad-regime official in April 2026 provoked mixed reactions within Syria. Atef Najib, the first cousin of deposed President Bashar al-Assad, is being prosecuted for crimes committed during a brutal crackdown on protesters who took to the streets following the arrest and torture of children for spraying anti-Assad slogans on a school wall in 2011. Many cite this series of events as the spark that ignited the Syrian revolution. The trial of Najib is a long-awaited moment for so many in Syria.  But it also lays bare deep concerns about the limitations of current transitional justice processes.

Syrian law so far has no legislation for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity and does not cover the command responsibility of the Assad regime for the crimes on trial. There is a risk that the trial will overlook the systemic nature of the violations and the chains of command that enabled them, undermining victims’ rights to truth, recognition, and justice. A crucial opportunity to signal genuine commitment to justice may yet be lost.

Indeed, it is clear from the events of the last year – whether the coastal massacres of March 2025, the violence that racked Sweida in July, or indeed the horrors unfolding in northeast Syria in early 2026 – that an insidious culture of impunity still reigns supreme. The interim authorities are failing to tackle the disinformation and hate speech that continue to inflame division and violence.

When it comes to the disappeared, a very limited number of Syrian families have yet to receive any information about their loved ones. NCM meetings have been heavily scaled-back. More mass graves are being uncovered on a regular basis, but, shockingly, the authorities are still failing to provide, or indeed properly protect, much of the vital evidence they hold. Senior Ministry of Interior officials have indicated they now control the vast majority of the Assad regime’s Mukhabarat archives, and the Minister of Justice has confirmed they have documentation of executions in Assad prisons. Both could potentially reveal the fate of tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of disappeared Syrians. Yet little has materialized in the last year.

Perhaps more damaging is that enforced disappearances are still being documented, with some Syrians being incarcerated in the very same prisons that were liberated with much celebration just over one year ago. These fundamental failings risk fatally eroding whatever fragile trust there may be in the nascent process of transitional justice.

On a more bureaucratic level, there are questions about the institutional and procedural framework that is being created to guide and sustain the transitional justice process. Whether creating a Commission for the Missing that is separate from the Commission for Transitional Justice is the right decision, for example, remains to be seen. It risks creating inefficiencies in terms of process, cost, meaningful participation, support for victims, and uncoordinated recommendations.

There is still significant hope that a process of transitional justice in Syria can lead to the creation of a peaceful, pluralistic society in which the rights and freedoms of all citizens are protected and the rule of law is upheld. But to achieve this, there is an urgent need to establish clear, transparent national frameworks for transitional justice pathways. Collaboratively created outlines for what this could look like already exist.

Beyond Syria, the international community must refuse to accept box-ticking gestures by Syria’s interim authorities. They must invest, financially and in terms of political will, in pushing the interim government to prioritize a process of genuine transitional justice. As part of this, international actors must remain acutely aware of how their funds are distributed, conditioned, and sequenced; the effect this will have on determining whether Syria builds inclusive institutions or whether it reconstructs the oppressive structures and extractive economy of the past cannot be underestimated. When considering funding priorities and commitments, the international community should also recognize the critical role being played by civil society organizations within and beyond Syria. Through multiple initiatives, these bodies are driving efforts to implement and sustain a truly legitimate process of justice.

The international community must also continue to support – and urge the Syrian interim government to cooperate with – key international justice mechanisms such as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Syrian Arab Republic. For over a decade, the COI has established the most authoritative and credible record of human rights violations in Syria. Its findings can now play a pivotal role in accountability and institutional reform. Encouragingly, the COI’s mandate was renewed by Member States at the 61^st Session of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2026.

So too, the international community must continue to support and drive the work of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons (IIMP), established by the UN in 2016 and 2023 respectively. As Syria takes its first steps towards transitional justice, the central repository of vital information and evidence held by these two bodies – relating to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, plus the fate and whereabouts of missing persons in Syria – has never been more important.

Numerous lessons can also be drawn from other nations’ experiences. Tools such as the hybrid court model, versions of which have been used successfully in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Kosovo, could be adapted for the Syrian context. By combining elements of the international and domestic legal system to prosecute serious crimes, this model could secure the impartiality of the judicial process in Syria, address issues of capacity, and enrich the expertise of Syrian legal personnel. It would also be an important step towards implementing much needed reform of Syria’s judiciary, as well as radical transformation of its security sector.

Ongoing work – from both the interim government and international actors – to create a victim reparations fund, funded in part by the confiscated assets of the former regime, should be supported. And creative solutions to healing, including investment in psycho-social and post-traumatic care, must be thought of not only as holistic elements of the healthcare or education system, but as integral to Syrian arts and culture.

In Syria, justice cannot be confined to court rooms or to political resolutions. It has so many potential pathways: through art, memory, the defiance of survivors, and the memories of the disappeared. It is not a tool for retaliation, a fleeting moment, or a bargaining chip, but a vital means of building sustainable peace and a just society. Through justice, truth, and equality, we can build solidarity among Syria’s diversity of victims, enabling the country to emerge from the social incoherence left behind by the Assad regime. Syrians, personally as individuals and collectively as a society, have a right to truth. Transitional justice is a pathway to victim redress and to healing, to restoring the trust of Syrians in justice, and to writing a new social contract.

A huge debt is owed to the Syrian people: If the transitional government fails to address it and the debt remains pending, it will cripple the country’s attempts at democratic and economic revival. Laying the stable foundations for renewal will take the collective, unshakeable determination of the Syrian people desperate for change, the concerted support of an international community invested in seeing the birth of a peaceful new nation, and the sustained efforts of interim authorities acting in good faith for the future of Syria. The route of transitional justice is strewn with potholes and pitfalls, but never has there been a more worthwhile journey. For every survivor, it is essential.