A view of Damascus, Syria. Mnyar/Adobe Stock

In a landmark development for transitional justice in Syria, the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus recently passed its first series of judgements against senior officials of the former Assad regime. The court convicted Atef Najib, the former head of the Political Security Branch, and seven other co-defendants, including former President Bashar al-Assad, of crimes against humanity and war crimes. All defendants, except Najib, were tried in absentia and all were sentenced to death.

The goal of the proceedings is to hold to account individuals responsible for the widespread atrocities committed in Syria during the Assad regime and Syrian Civil War. The trials also serve as a symbolic recognition of the suffering and oppression of the Syrian people during that time.

Robert Petit, head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism Investigating Serious Crimes in Syria, says that the trials are historic and critical to the establishment of a credible state in Syria, where its citizens are willing to engage because they believe that the rule of law will be upheld. ‘The fundamental importance of accounting for these war crimes is this: if the state can’t be trusted to do that, how can it trusted to uphold my rights in any context?’

Fadel Abdulghany, founder and executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says that while Syrian procedural law contains the important safeguard of requiring retrials for fugitives convicted in absentia who are later arrested, the case record must demonstrate that fair trial principles were respected. ‘In cases of this magnitude, the record should show the steps taken to notify each accused, whether the absence represents a genuine waiver of the right to be present or a deliberate evasion, and the form of independent legal representation that was provided to him,’ he says.

Other concerns raised related to the legal clarity of the proceedings. According to the public summary of the court, the judges who convicted the defendants relied on definitions of crimes under international criminal law that are not codified under Syrian legislation. For example, the judges drew on Article 7 of the Rome Statute to define crimes against humanity even though Syria has not formally ratified the Rome Statute.

Abdulghany says that while the application of international law is legally relevant it requires a great deal of caution. ‘The Statute can serve as an important interpretive reference, and some of its provisions may reflect rules of customary international law, but it can't simply be treated as though it were Syrian criminal law grounded in treaty obligations,’ he says.

John Balouziyeh, a partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle and officer of the IBA Human Rights Law Committee, believes that the objection to the use of international law is weaker than first appears. ‘Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expressly permits prosecution for acts that were criminal under international law when committed, and crimes against humanity were firmly established in customary international law long before 2011. Moreover, the underlying conduct—murder and torture—was always a crime under Syrian law,’ he says.

The use of the death penalty to sentence the defendants is another controversial aspect of the trials. Under international law the death penalty can be used only for the ‘most serious crimes’ but it has been rejected by the United Nations and many human rights organisations as incompatible with the right to life and freedom from torture, cruel or degrading treatment.

The transitional justice process in Syria is multifaceted with criminal trials only forming one part of it. The process involves truth-seeking, efforts to locate the more than one hundred thousand missing and disappeared, reparations for victims, memorialisation, and institutional reform to guarantee that the crimes never recur.

Abdulghany says that while criminal prosecutions are indispensable, they can’t on their own address the scale of violations in Syria. As of the end of August 2026, the Syrian Network for Human Rights had documented at least 177,021 people who remain forcibly disappeared and at least 45,365 deaths due to torture or inhuman conditions of detention, including 45,038 in detention facilities that were run by the former Assad government.

Petit believes that Syrians have the tools needed for the transitional justice process to be successful in their country. ‘First of all because it starts with themselves. Syrians are some of the best documenters of mass atrocities in history. Also, in their civil society organisations are some of the most politically savvy, engaged, determined people that I have worked with. There’s that wealth of expertise, of engagement, of commitment that can be drawn upon for the transitional justice process,’ he says.

Petit says that the first step in the transitional justice process is to devise a comprehensive strategy that is victim centred. The strategy must be then communicated clearly and be able to deal with the reality of the scale of the violations that have occurred. ‘It’s about making very hard choices about what is going to move forward and what isn’t,’ he says. ‘But you are talking about a generational process here’.