During Syria’s conflict, the Assad regime has continued committing many war crimes. Although de-escalation zones were established to mitigate conflict violence, the number of displaced Syrians increased. On February 5, Arab Center Washington DC hosted a panel discussion and a book review on the topic of Accountability in Syria: Achieving Transitional Justice in a Postconflict Society. The discussion involved three speakers: Radwan Ziadeh, a senior fellow for the Arab Center Washington DC, Mai El-Sadany, the legal and judicial director at the Tahrir Institute, and Mohammad Alaa Ghanem, a Syrian academic and pro-democracy campaigner.
War crimes
Ziadeh noted that because justice and accountability are left out in the Geneva and Astana talks, he wrote the book Accountability in Syria to call for attention to war atrocities and raise the issue of accountability. He listed five crimes that the Assad regime has committed in the last eight years.
Forced displacement
Ghanem says that ceasefires, such as the Idlib and Daraa de-escalation zones, are a prelude to liquidation. Political analysts in Washington misunderstood ceasefires, which they thought would constitute a win-win solution that could empower local communities. Instead, ceasefires emboldened and benefited Assad’s regime, which used them to induce demographic change. He presented three purposes of ceasefires:
Remedies
El-Sadany argues that it’s time for justice now. Three tools are available for accountability:
El-Sadany proposes that the international community needs to amend, strengthen, and improve accountability mechanisms. Advocates should lobby their governments for more funding for accountability efforts and improved human rights laws. Lawyers should translate materials, especially on universal jurisdiction, into Arabic to reach Syrian victims and civil society.
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