Category: Statements

Last month, Syria saw a wave of strikes across several private-sector companies. It began at a ceramics factory south of Damascus. Workers at Zanobiya Ceramics not only demanded higher pay, but also raised concerns about medical care, health insurance, first aid, and the presence of a doctor at the facility.

The strike quickly moved beyond one factory. Similar protests and sit-ins appeared in other private-sector companies, including al-Hafez and Madar. The takeaway is clear: robust labour rights protections should not be treated as a matter of secondary concern, but rather as vital to the strength and durability of Syria’s recovery.

Syria’s international commitments

As the primary guarantor of human rights, the transitional government is under a range of obligations under international law. Syria has been a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) since 1969. Under Article 6, states recognise the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to gain a living by work they freely choose or accept, and must take appropriate steps to safeguard this right. Article 7 goes further, recognising the right of everyone to just and favourable conditions of work: fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value; a decent living for workers and their families; safe and healthy working conditions; equal opportunity for promotion; and rest, reasonable working hours, and paid holidays.

Read alongside the ICESCR’s prescription of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to health, these provisions describe precisely the demands the Zanobiya workers raised. Further, as a longstanding ILO member, Syria has ratified the organisation’s fundamental conventions, including those on freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively (Nos. 87 and 98), equal remuneration (No. 100), non-discrimination (No. 111) and the abolition of forced labour (Nos. 29 and 105), as well as the Labour Inspection Convention (No. 81) and, notably, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention (No. 155)—one of the first Arab states to do so. On paper, then, the safe and healthy working conditions the Zanobiya workers demanded are already the subject of a binding commitment.

The problem, therefore, is not a matter of a missing signature but rather the gap between ratification and enforcement: workers still had to stop production to ask for first aid, a doctor on site, and basic health cover that Convention No. 155 already obliges the state to ensure.

The remaining gaps compound this. Syria has not ratified the Occupational Safety and Health promotional-framework convention (No. 187), the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (No. 102) or the Minimum Wage Fixing Convention (No. 131)—instruments that would anchor social protection and a wage that tracks the cost of living. Ratifying and, above all, implementing these standards should be treated as central to reform. But the delay in reforming, strengthening, and enforcing better protections should not signal to businesses an absence of responsibility. Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses have an independent responsibility to respect human rights, which includes the rights protected by the ICESCR and ILO Conventions.

The problem with ‘compliance’

When workers at Zanobiya struck in demand of stronger economic and social protections, decent wages amid deteriorating living conditions, a safe working environment, social protection, health insurance, and first aid, the company responded by pointing to its compliance with labour law. Therein lies the problem. Inadequate labour laws that do not reflect or adhere to international standards can turn ‘compliance’ into a shield, and where the law itself falls short, meeting it may still constitute a failure of the state to fulfil a range of international legal obligations: the right to just and favourable conditions of work, an adequate standard of living and the right to health, among others.

A business model that survives by keeping workers below subsistence level is not sustainable, and a legal framework that permits it is not fit for the recovery Syrians want to build. Reform means enforceable minimum wages that meet living costs, regular labour inspection, genuine health and safety obligations, and reliable channels for workplace complaints. Protecting the rights of workers does not constitute a hurdle on Syria’s road to recovery, but rather a viable pathway thereto.

A test of the new Syria

The government and the private sector must not lose sight of the fact that workers are not incidental to reconstruction; they are integral to it. Recovery must support those whose labour drives it. Respecting workers’ rights does not impose burdens on employers or encumber them, but rather sustains recovery and business over the long term, building an economy that can endure rather than one that runs on the exhaustion of the people who hold it up. This is not only a question of economics. Demands for social and economic rights, for dignity, fair wages and a life not defined by deprivation, were among the very grievances that drove the Syrian revolution. To fall short with workers at such a critical moment in the nation’s history would betray the values of a movement to which so many devoted, and lost, their lives, workers among them. If Syria is to transition into a just, rights-respecting democracy in which every citizen is treated equitably, then reforming its labour law is not a peripheral or technical adjustment but a fundamental part of that project, one measure of whether the new Syria will honour the promises made in the name of those who fought for it.

Written by: Alreem Kamal, Legal Officer, Human Rights & Business Unit

One year ago, violence erupted in the Sweida governorate. What began as a local confrontation in the Maqwas neighborhood of Sweida city rapidly escalated into one of the deadliest episodes of violence since the fall of Assad. Based on CoI’s documentation, within three days, more than 1,700 people were killed, the large majority of whom were from the Druze community. Violations against them also included destruction of entire villages and homes and subsequent massive displacement, torture and outrages of personal dignity, sexual and gender-based violence, and the detention and disappearance of civilian population at the hands of both government forces and tribal fighters, aggravated by the severe sectarian nature of such crimes. Bedouin civilians also suffered killings, arbitrary deprivation of liberty and other grave abuses of their rights at the hands of Druze armed groups, including forced displacement from their homes.

Beyond its devastating human toll, the violence deepened mistrust between communities and toward the State, further eroded the social fabric of Syria and led to entire Druze communities experiencing fear for their present and future – a destructive impact that Syria and all Syrians couldn’t afford at that stage of the transition.

Consistent with its obligations under international human rights law, the Syrian state is required to respect human rights, prevent violations and protect its population. During the violence, government forces were directly implicated in the commission of human rights abuses and failed, overall, to fulfill those obligations in relation to abuses committed by other actors, including tribal fighters. One year later, the absence of a meaningful victim-centered response has compounded that initial failure.

In this phase of the political transition, a victim-centered response is not a matter of political discretion. It instead reflects obligations arising from international human rights treaties binding on Syria, and recognised by Article 12(2) of Syria’s post-Assad Constitutional Declaration. This requires Syria to ensure that all victims’ dignity and their rights to justice, truth, reparations, guarantees of non-recurrence and participation shape the response to Sweida violence.

More importantly, however, Sweida raises a foundational question that extends beyond accountability for one specific case: what does it mean to repair state violence when that violence was committed after liberation?

The violence in Sweida in July 2025, the further violations that followed, and their continuous nature, including the inability to return, occurred after liberation – at a moment when the new government was expected to embody a decisive break with past patterns of state violence, especially after the Coastal massacre. This fundamentally alters the legal and political significance of the State’s response. In this context, a victim-centered response serves two interconnected purposes. It restores the right and dignity of those harmed, while demonstrating that the new Syrian state genuinely accepts legal responsibility for violence committed under their own authority. In this sense, the fulfilment of victims’ rights becomes a measure not only of justice for individuals, but of the constitutional and rights-based character of the transition itself.

Right to Justice and Right to Truth: Accountability and Truth as Recognition

Under IHRL, accountability and truth processes are part of a broader right to remedy, which requires such processes to be independent and impartial, accessible and participatory, and overall effective in being capable of reflecting the whole experience of harm suffered by victims, and to lead to concrete results in terms of punishment, disclosure and reform. It also constitutes formal recognition by the State that violations occurred and that victims are right-holders and equal citizens before the law.

As an important step, judicial proceedings have recently started; nevertheless, military courts are consistently considered to be structurally ill-suited to deliver justice for gross human rights violations against civilians. Their jurisdiction, composition and institutional purpose sits uneasily with the requirements of independence, impartiality, public scrutiny and victims’ participation required by IHRL. UN Treaty Bodies and regional human rights courts have consistently emphasized that gross human rights violations should be investigated and prosecuted before ordinary civilian courts.

A victim-centered response also requires institutions and processes capable of delivering justice in a way that victims can see justice being done, and whether it is being done on their behalf. Yet, public information regarding ongoing investigations remains limited, including about investigations against any unit or organisational commanders, and it is negatively impacted by reports of possible amnesties to perpetrators. This makes it difficult for victims and the wider public to assess whether proceedings are genuine, comprehensive and impartial. Access to relevant information is an essential component of victims’ ability to effectively exercise their right to an effective remedy.

A victim-centred approach futher requires that all allegations of grave abuses committed during the violence be clarified and investigated, regardless of the identity, role or affiliation of the alleged perpetrators. This includes examining the responsibility of those at all levels of the chain of command. This includes assessing both direct criminal responsibility and superior responsibility, including individuals within government forces who may have ordered, planned, authorised or, where applicable, failed to prevent or punish the commission of such abuses, including those that may have permitted irregular forces to accompany state agents in military operations.

Beyond state responsibility, a victim-centered response also requires addressing the whole extent of violence suffered by victims in Sweida. It therefore requires investigations into violations committed by tribal fighters who committed violations against Druze civilians, whether by acting under effective control of the government forces or acting with their acquiescence, or independently of it. Additionally, it also requires ensuring that every effort is taken toward guaranteeing that investigations and prosecutions will also include individuals linked with other non-state actors, responsible for violations against the Bedouins community and other civilians, including in the period after the massacre. On this note, it is imperative to ensure that no future political agreement with relevant parties should displace the rights of victims to justice.

The recognition extends beyond the truth disclosed through judicial proceedings. Victims have the right to know the truth about the circumstances in which violations occurred, including how, when, why and by whom they were committed. Moreover, democratic transitions depend upon replacing state-controlled narratives with institutions capable of producing credible public truth. In this regard, the Syrian society as a whole has an interest in ensuring a public record of violence that is capable of preventing denial and revisionism, especially in the current climate of proliferation of hate speech and sectarian incitement against Druze.

Although the establishment of the Sweida Fact-Finding Committee, including the government’s cooperation with the Commission of Inquiry, represents a positive and important initial step, the value of the domestic fact-finding process ultimately depends on the credibility, completeness and accessibility of their findings. In this respect, discrepancies between the CoI report and the domestic one, which appears not to fully reflect the role of private actors acting alongside state forces and the level of coordination underlying the military operation, may risk undermining rather than fulfilling victims’ right to the truth. The limited public disclosure of the domestic report further undermines the fulfillment of this obligation, as technical publication alone cannot substitute for meaningful public disclosure of truth and access to information, outreach and engagement with affected communities.

For many families, however, the most immediate expression of the right to truth remains knowing the fate of their disappeared relatives. Dozens of cases of detention and enforced disappearance of men and boys by the Syrian transitional government have been reported, including of individuals allegedly detained in Adra and Mezzeh Military Prison, while a few individuals remain missing following deprivation of liberty by forces affiliated with al-Hijri. Irrespective of the military context in which these cases of deprivation of liberty occurred, IHRL obliges the Syrian state to fully clarify the fate and whereabouts of all disappeared persons without delay, to put an end promptly to any arbitrary detention, and to investigate and prosecute any individual or entity responsible for such cases of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance. Enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and families’ separation from their loved ones represented the core form of societal violence of the Assad regime against the Syrian people. Political or military arrangements, especially after the liberation from Assad, cannot displace or substitute the state’s obligation to respect the fundamental rights of every Syrian citizen to liberty, dignity and freedom from torture and ill-treatment.

Right to Reparations and Right Guarantees of Non-Recurrence: Reform and Acknowledgement as Essential to Repair Trust between the State and its Citizens

A victim-centered response requires reparations for all victims of the violence in Sweida that are adequate, effective and proportionate to the gravity of the violations suffered. This needs to be accompanied by reforms that can concretely lead to effective prevention and non-recurrence of violations, both in relation to the acts, and the circumstances and the institutional conditions that may have underpinned such violations. They constitute a legal obligation arising from IHRL and seek to restore victims’ dignity, recognise the harm suffered and transform the institutional conditions that enabled the violations and failed to protect civilians from abuses.

In the case of Sweida, reparations extend beyond repairing individual harm. Violence that occurred after the liberation of Syria represents a profound rupture in the country’s transition. For many Syrians, the expectation that liberation would inaugurate a new relationship between citizens and state, and among communities themselves, was replaced by renewed experiences of state and inter-communal violence. The resulting harm is therefore not only physical or material, but deeply collective and political. Repairing that harm requires more than traditional forms of reparations; it requires rebuilding the relationship of trust between citizens and a State that failed to protect them after the liberation, and between communities. In this sense, trust is not merely a political aspiration but the product of rights-respecting institutions.

Firstly, a victim-centred response requires the Syrian transitional government to complement criminal accountability with institutional accountability capable of addressing the broader causes of violations. Under IHRL, guarantees of non-recurrence constitute a component of the right to an effective remedy, requiring structural reforms in cases where violations reveal institutional failures rather than isolated misconduct. This requires a broader process of institutional self-examination, including vetting and identification of individuals within leadership who may have permitted or organised such violations, or at minimum may be responsible for loss of control of their forces or for allowing irregular actors to accompany them. This institutional review is significantly important, including as a response to concerns raised by the Commission of Inquiry that attacks may have been part “of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Suwayda across a subset of government force commanders”.

Importantly, it also requires a serious assessment of tribal mobilization and the risks posed by the involvement of private citizens in violence against their fellow Syrian citizens, which is essential for safeguarding the broader political transition, preserving the unity of the Syrian people and guaranteeing that mobilization won’t occur in the future and will be efficiently prevented. Such assessments and reforms should be conducted transparently, and incorporate the participation of victims and affected communities.

Second, acknowledgment of all Syrian citizens’ suffering, including the commitment by the State to acknowledge, openly and unequivocally, the violations occurred and to apologise publicly to the affected communities, if accompanied by concrete truth, justice and reform measures outlined above, remain essential to be able to ensure that all Syrians find themselves part of the new State. Official acknowledgement of responsibility and official apologies are recognised forms of satisfaction and a form of remedy to victims under IHRL.

Ultimately, the response to Sweida is part of the societal and political memory of Syria’s transition. The legitimacy of the new Syrian state will ultimately be measured not by the promises made at the moment of liberation, but by its willingness to recognise the rights of those harmed by state-violence committed after liberation. A state demonstrates its liberation-character not by claiming infallibility, but by accepting legal responsibility when it fails to protect its citizens and taking effective steps to remedy such harm that meaningfully fulfill victims’ rights. In this sense, whether victims harmed after liberation experience the new state as a genuine guarantor of rights or as another source of violence, denial or marginalisation will depend on the willingness of public institutions to fully acknowledge responsibility, repair the harms suffered by all victims and reform the structures that made those violations possible, again.

As Syria enters a new phase of recovery and reconstruction, few issues are more consequential than the future of its informal settlements. Across the country, millions of Syrians have lived for decades in neighbourhoods classified as “informal” or “unregulated.” These communities are often portrayed as planning failures, legal irregularities, or obstacles to modern urban development. Yet such characterisations overlook a fundamental reality: informal settlements are not the result of individual wrongdoing. They are the product of decades of state failure to provide affordable housing, effective urban planning, and accessible land management systems.

Treating residents of informal settlements as second-class property holders would not only be unjust; it would undermine the very foundations of a sustainable and rights-respecting reconstruction process.

Informality Was Produced by the State

Before the conflict, informal housing constituted between 30 and 50 percent of Syria’s housing stock. Entire districts of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, and other cities developed outside formal planning frameworks. These neighbourhoods became home to millions of Syrians, particularly lower-income families seeking affordable housing close to economic opportunities.
This reality did not emerge because Syrians rejected the law. Rather, it emerged because successive governments under the Assad regime failed to provide sufficient affordable housing and created a rigid and dysfunctional urban planning system that could not keep pace with demographic growth and rural-to-urban migration. Restrictive land policies, inefficient planning procedures, weak implementation capacity, and corruption collectively pushed large segments of the population into informal housing solutions.

At the same time, the state gradually normalised these areas by extending electricity, water, roads, schools, and public services. Informal settlements were tolerated, taxed, serviced, and politically integrated. Residents purchased homes, invested life savings, raised families, and built communities over generations. Many possessed various forms of ownership documentation, even where formal cadastral registration was incomplete. Informality, therefore, did not signify the absence of social legitimacy or genuine property interests.

The challenge facing Syria today is that many reconstruction initiatives continue to approach informal settlements primarily as planning problems rather than rights-holders’ communities.
This approach is dangerous because it risks reproducing one of the central injustices of the conflict era: the use of urban planning and redevelopment to dispossess vulnerable populations. As the case of Marota and Basilia Cities projects organised under Decree 66 and Law 10 demonstrates, legal and planning instruments were used to facilitate property confiscation, forced displacement, and demographic engineering. Entire neighbourhoods were demolished under the language of redevelopment while residents received little meaningful protection or compensation.

If reconstruction authorities now argue that residents of informal settlements deserve less compensation because their homes were not formally zoned, they would effectively punish communities for a condition largely created by decades of state policy failures.

The legal status of a neighbourhood should not determine the value of human dignity, security, or belonging.

Equal Compensation Is a Matter of Justice

Housing, land, and property rights are not limited to those possessing perfect paperwork or residing within formally planned neighbourhoods. International standards increasingly recognise a broad range of tenure arrangements and require protection against arbitrary displacement.

In practical terms, this means that residents of informal settlements should be entitled to compensation mechanisms equivalent to those available to residents of formally zoned areas when their properties are expropriated, demolished, or redeveloped.

Equal compensation does not necessarily mean identical compensation formulas. Authorities may need to account for different ownership arrangements and documentation systems. However, the underlying principle must remain clear: families should not receive reduced protection simply because they lived in an informal area.

A family in informal districts of Homs, Damascus, Aleppo, Deir Az-Zor or others, may have occupied and invested in a property for decades. Their economic loss, social disruption, and emotional attachment to place are no less significant than those experienced by residents of formally registered neighbourhoods. Indeed, because many informal settlements housed lower-income communities, unequal compensation risks deepening existing inequalities and further marginalising populations that have already borne the brunt of conflict and displacement.
Many of these communities were also at the forefront of the Syrian revolution and subsequently faced some of the harshest forms of collective punishment by the Assad regime. These neighbourhoods were subjected to siege, bombardment, forced displacement, and redevelopment policies that stripped residents of their homes and property rights. For many families, the loss of housing was not simply a consequence of conflict but part of a broader pattern of political retaliation. Any reconstruction framework that fails to restore their rights, or that provides them with lesser protections than residents of formal areas, risks reinforcing these injustices. Beyond the moral and legal concerns, such an approach could generate renewed social tensions, undermine confidence in state institutions, and weaken the credibility of the governing authorities at a moment when trust, inclusion, and national reconciliation are essential to Syria’s recovery.

Reconstruction Depends on Recognising Informal Communities

This debate is not merely about fairness. It is also about the success of reconstruction itself.
Syria’s recovery will require the return of displaced populations, the restoration of public trust, and the reintegration of fractured communities. None of these objectives can be achieved if millions of Syrians fear that reconstruction will become another mechanism for exclusion or dispossession.

Experiences from around the world demonstrate that attempts to erase informal settlements through top-down redevelopment often generate resistance, social fragmentation, and prolonged disputes. Sustainable urban recovery is more likely when authorities recognise existing communities, regularise tenure where possible, and involve residents in planning decisions affecting their future.

For Syria, this means moving beyond the simplistic distinction between “formal” and “informal.” The real question is not whether a neighbourhood complied with planning regulations decades ago. The real question is whether reconstruction policies respect the rights and legitimate interests of the people who live there.

A Rights-Based Path Forward

A rights-based reconstruction framework should therefore include several core principles.

First, informal settlements should be recognised as a structural feature of Syria’s urban development history rather than as isolated legal violations.

Second, residents of informal settlements should enjoy equal access to restitution, compensation, and dispute-resolution mechanisms.

Third, compensation schemes should account for diverse forms of evidence of ownership and occupancy, including customary arrangements, municipal records, utility bills, witness testimony, and other forms of proof.

Fourth, urban redevelopment projects should prioritise in-situ upgrading and regularisation wherever feasible rather than large-scale displacement, provided that communities are duly consulted prior to any such project’s design or implementation.

Finally, affected communities must be meaningfully consulted throughout planning and reconstruction processes.

Building Cities Without Exclusion

The reconstruction of Syria’s cities will inevitably require difficult choices about land use, infrastructure, and urban development. Yet one principle should remain non-negotiable: informality must not become a justification for unequal rights.

Informal settlements were the product of decades of neglect, planning failures, and structural shortcomings. Their residents should not be asked to bear the costs of those failures again.

If reconstruction is to contribute to justice, stability, and long-term recovery, it must recognise that housing, land, and property rights belong to all Syrians, not only those fortunate enough to have lived within the boundaries of a zoning plan. The future of Syria’s cities depends not on erasing informal communities, but on integrating them as equal stakeholders in the country’s recovery.

Written by: Eyad Hamid, Head of Human Rights & Business Unit, SLDP

Syria’s transition into a new political reality has brought questions of transitional justice from the theoretical to the urgently practical. Who will be held accountable for the abuses of the past decade? What mechanisms will be capable of delivering meaningful redress? And critically, will accountability extend beyond armed individuals to the economic actors who enabled, financed, and profited from the mass atrocities of the last 15 years?

These questions are not novel. Post-conflict societies from Nuremberg to Bogotá have grappled with the role of businesses in sustaining violence, and the record is sobering. Earlier this year, the Paris Criminal Court found cement giant Lafarge guilty of financing terrorism and violating international sanctions for its operations in Syria. a landmark ruling that signals growing recognition of corporate entity complicity. Yet Lafarge remains the exception. A comparative review of five transitional justice settings — Germany, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, and Sierra Leone — reveals a consistent pattern: whilst transitional justice frameworks have increasingly acknowledged the role of corporate actors in conflict, they have overwhelmingly failed to translate that acknowledgement into enforceable accountability. For Syria, learning from these failures is a design imperative.

A Gap That Keeps Reappearing

The “corporate accountability gap” reflects the deep roots of state-centric and individually-focused criminal law paradigms. The Nuremberg Military Tribunals are often cited as a foundational precedent, yet the historical record is more nuanced than this framing suggests. While corporations as legal entities were never formally prosecuted, leading industrialists were tried for financing the SS, profiting from slave labour, and sustaining the Nazi war economy. The dissolution of IG Farben demonstrated that corporate entities could be subject to punitive intervention even without formal criminal conviction. The real lesson of Nuremberg is not that corporate accountability is legally impossible, but that it must be actively constructed through tailored legal instruments — without which political and economic pressures will erode whatever gains are made. Many industrialist convictions were later reduced or commuted as Western powers prioritised reconstruction and geopolitical stability. For Syria, the parallel is direct: resisting pressure to normalise economic relations at the expense of accountability requires explicit legal safeguards built in from the outset.

Voluntary Participation

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its 1997 Business and Labour Hearings formally acknowledged the role of corporations in sustaining apartheid. However, since corporate participation was voluntary and the TRC lacked enforcement powers, those findings produced no binding accountability or reparations. The subsequent Khulumani litigation illustrated both the possibilities and the severe limitations of relying on foreign jurisdictions to fill domestic gaps. When both the South African and US governments moved to obstruct the case, what resulted was a paralysis of accountability that left victims without remedy.

Colombia’s more recent experience reinforces the same lesson. Despite a sophisticated three-pillar transitional justice system, corporate actors remain subject only to voluntary participation. The Truth Commission’s final report documented how economic actors facilitated violence through land dispossession and contracts securing military protection for corporate infrastructure. However, without mandatory jurisdiction, documentation has not translated into accountability. The 2024 jury verdict against Chiquita Brands, the first time a US jury found a corporation liable for overseas human rights abuses, took seventeen years of litigation, showcasing why foreign proceedings cannot substitute for robust domestic mechanisms.

Overlooking the Local

Bosnia and Herzegovina offers a further cautionary tale, particularly relevant to Syria’s fragmented economic landscape. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) pursued individual criminal accountability with considerable rigour yet left the political economy of the conflict entirely unaddressed. The Dayton Agreement prioritised market reconstruction over accountability, enabling wartime elites to consolidate economic power in the post-war period. Most instructively, the framework’s omissions extended beyond large corporations to locally embedded economic actors, enterprises that materially enabled wartime violence but were never scrutinised. For Syria, where local businesses and networks played a significant role in sustaining regime abuses, a framework that focuses solely on high-level actors risks leaving intact the economic structures that enabled and benefited from the conflict.

What Syria Needs

The comparative record points toward several concrete design requirements for a Syrian transitional justice framework. The most fundamental is mandatory jurisdiction over economic actors. Across every case examined, voluntary participation produced the same result: documentation without accountability. Any Syrian mechanism must include compulsory jurisdiction over both corporate entities and individuals acting in a business capacity, insulated from political interference.

The framework must also address the full spectrum of economic complicity. Sierra Leone’s experience with diamond financing illustrates how conflict economies operate through layered, diffuse networks, while Bosnia demonstrates the consequences of overlooking local actors entirely. Civil society must be institutionally empowered rather than merely included: Colombia’s organisations such as Dejusticia and the Corporate Accountability Lab demonstrate what sustained advocacy can achieve. Syrian civil society, including diaspora organisations with considerable legal capacity, should be formally integrated into transitional justice mechanisms with the standing to make that participation substantive.

Syria’s transitional justice process is still being shaped. The choices made now about institutional design and the treatment of economic actors will determine whether accountability is genuinely achieved or, once again, deferred in favour of reconstruction and political expediency. Closing the corporate accountability gap is not a secondary concern. It is central to whether transitional justice in Syria will be meaningful at all.

Written by: Alia Khalouf, Legal Intern at HRBU, LSE LLB Graduate

As Syria gradually reopens economically, regional businesses are increasingly exploring opportunities in sectors such as construction, infrastructure, telecommunications, transport, logistics, energy, and real estate. For many companies, Syria represents a potentially important post-conflict market with significant long-term demand. Yet Syria is not a conventional investment environment. Years of conflict, displacement, institutional collapse, and economic fragmentation mean that business activity will inevitably interact with broader questions of human rights, governance, and social stability. For regional businesses, this creates both responsibility and risk.

Experiences from post-conflict settings such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Bosnia and Herzegovina show that reconstruction processes can deepen inequality and instability when investment moves faster than governance reform. In many cases, poorly regulated reconstruction has contributed to corruption, labour exploitation, environmental harm, and exclusion of affected communities. Businesses operating in Syria should seek to avoid repeating these patterns.

A key starting point is heightened human rights due diligence. Companies entering the Syrian market should carefully assess who they partner with, how projects affect local communities, and whether operations could contribute to displacement, exploitation, or exclusion. Syria’s wartime economy reshaped ownership structures, supply chains, and local power dynamics. Without proper due diligence, businesses may expose themselves to legal, financial, reputational, and operational risks,or future disputes over property and procurement.

Housing, land, and property rights are particularly sensitive. Millions of Syrians remain displaced, while many others face unresolved property claims, missing documentation, or damaged records. Businesses involved in housing, redevelopment, or infrastructure projects should ensure that investments do not contribute to forced displacement or prevent communities from returning to their homes. Community consultation and transparency are essential, not only from a rights perspective, but also to mitigate future legal and operational risks.

Labour rights should also be treated as a core reconstruction issue. Syria’s economic collapse has increased vulnerability among workers. Companies that rely on unsafe conditions, exploitative wages, or unregulated labour may achieve short-term cost reductions, but they also increase reputational exposure and long-term instability. By contrast, businesses that invest in fair wages, safer working conditions, and local employment are more likely to build trust and sustainable operations over time.

Environmental responsibility is equally important. Conflict-related destruction has left Syria facing serious environmental and public health challenges, including pollution, damaged infrastructure, and unsafe rubble management. Businesses that integrate environmental safeguards into reconstruction projects are likely to face fewer community tensions, regulatory risks, and future liabilities.

Importantly, responsible business practices should not be viewed as obstacles to investment. In post-conflict settings, they are increasingly becoming commercial necessities. Companies associated with transparency, responsible partnerships, labour protections, and community engagement are more likely to attract international partners, maintain regional credibility, and navigate future regulatory changes successfully.

Syria’s reconstruction will shape the country’s social and economic future for decades. Regional businesses entering the market are therefore not only commercial actors; they are participants in a broader recovery process. Companies that ignore human rights risks may contribute to renewed instability and expose themselves to serious legal, political, and reputational consequences. Those that adopt more responsible approaches, however, are likely to be better positioned for long-term legitimacy, sustainability, and success in Syria’s evolving economy.

Written by: Eyad Hamid, Head of Human Rights & Business Unit, SLDP

In early April 2026, statements by Talal Al-Hilali, head of the Syrian Investment Authority, set off a wave of public alarm. Al-Hilali indicated that the state owns 71 public hospitals and is moving toward granting them to the private sector in partnership with the state, as part of an effort to develop the health sector and improve its efficiency. The backlash was swift, and clarification followed. The Syrian Investment Authority stressed that “health is not for sale”, insisting the comments were not about privatising hospitals but about studying modern management models in partnership with the private sector, with the state remaining “the primary guarantor of treatment”. Syria’s Minister of Health similarly affirmed that medical services will remain free of charge and that there are no plans to privatise public hospitals.

The controversy subsided, but the question it raised did not. Even where full privatisation is off the table, public–private partnerships in healthcare are not without risk. In a country still rebuilding both its institutions and its social contract, those risks warrant serious scrutiny.

What Syrians Think

Public opinion is unambiguous. An April 2026 survey conducted across Damascus, Rural Damascus, and Homs found that 88% of respondents oppose transferring state-run hospitals to the private sector. This is not simply a policy preference–it reflects a population that has endured years of infrastructure collapse, displacement, and the erosion of public services, and which is watching closely to see whether the interim authorities will rebuild the state or hollow it out further.

Satisfaction with public services has dropped sharply since February 2026, falling from 49% to 25%, while dissatisfaction has more than doubled. A combined 62% of respondents report difficulties covering living expenses, and only 13% believe the government is doing enough to address price increases. In this context, any move that could indirectly raise the cost of healthcare, degrade its quality, or restrict its access, is not an abstract concern, but rather a matter of survival.

The Right to Health Under International Law

Healthcare is a human right. Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Under General Comment No. 14, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has interpreted this to require that health services be available, accessible, acceptable, and of adequate quality. Crucially, accessibility includes economic accessibility: services must be affordable for all, including the most marginalised.

Under international law, the state bears the primary responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfil this right. This obligation cannot be discharged or delegated to private actors.

The Risks of Private Sector Involvement

Even short of full privatisation, public–private partnerships in healthcare carry well-documented risks.

Profit over people: When healthcare institutions operate under commercial incentives, efficiency tends to be measured in financial terms rather than health outcomes. Services that are costly to provide but essential to vulnerable groups, such as chronic disease management or reproductive health, become liabilities rather than priorities.

Access barriers: Introducing cost-recovery mechanisms, even modest ones, creates access barriers. Analysts have cautioned that without clear ceilings on costs that citizens may have to bear, improving service delivery can become a pretext for imposing additional financial burdens, deepening inequality in access to care.

Digitalisation and exclusion: Syria’s interim authorities have indicated plans to expand digital transformation in the health sector, linking hospital data to improve planning. This is not inherently problematic, but it carries risk. Communities with limited digital literacy, connectivity, or formal documentation risk being excluded or exploited rather than served.

Quality reduction: Privatisation or commercialised management can also result in a degradation of service quality, as providers cut costs to maximise returns. This directly undermines the full realisation of the right to health, in violation of the state’s obligations under international human rights law.

The Broader Danger: Outsourcing Obligation

There is a wider structural risk that deserves attention, particularly as Syria begins engaging with international investment frameworks and reconstruction finance. Scholars have described the emergence of a ‘development as de-risking’ paradigm in which states are gradually reoriented toward protecting the conditions for foreign investment, using public resources to subsidise investor returns, while retreating from the direct provision of public goods. Health, education, water, housing all become potential “asset classes”.

This paradigm is manifest across sub-Saharan Africa, where the privatisation of health systems, through user fees, insurance schemes, and private investment platforms, has deepened inequality and weakened public health infrastructure. Digital health tools have in some instances become surveillance mechanisms, enabling insurers to adjust premiums based on patient data. These outcomes were the structural consequence of a model that places financial returns above public obligation.

The Syrian authorities have given reassurances. But reassurances are not frameworks. Experts have emphasised that the success of any private-sector involvement in public institutions depends on a clear legal framework governing the relationship between the state and investors, transparency in contracts, and effective oversight to prevent monopolies and protect citizens’ rights. In their absence, privatisation can shift from a tool for improving efficiency into a factor that increases burdens on citizens and deepens inequality.

At this critical moment in Syria’s transition, any outsourcing of the state’s human rights obligations, whether through formal privatisation or through the incremental erosion of public provision, would only further undermine trust in state institutions. It would constitute a dereliction of the duty that the current transition exists to fulfil.

What We Are Calling For

The transitional authorities must ensure that any engagement with the private sector in healthcare is:

* Grounded in a binding legal framework that explicitly protects the right to health;
* Subject to independent oversight, with transparent contracts and genuine accountability mechanisms;
* Designed to guarantee that no patient is denied care on financial grounds, nor provided inadequate, inaccessible, or unacceptable services, in line with Syria’s obligations under the ICESCR; and
* Assessed for its differential impact on the most vulnerable, including women, displaced persons, persons with disabilities, and those in low-income areas.

Written by: Alreem Kamal, Legal Officer, Human Rights & Business Unit

12 May 2026: A coalition of 27 Syrian civil society organisations and victims’ groups has released a new report outlining a proposed framework for criminal accountability in Syria, at a time when trials are beginning to take place in Damascus.

The report, Pathways to Criminal Accountability in Syria, brings together the perspectives of Syrian legal experts, victims’ and survivors’ groups, and civil society actors following an eight-month consultative process.

It sets out a practical framework for pursuing accountability that is credible, inclusive, and aligned with international standards, including key considerations related to legal characterisation of crimes, procedural safeguards, and meaningful victim participation.

The release comes at a critical moment, as initial steps towards criminal accountability are being taken inside Syria. While these developments are welcomed as a long-awaited shift after years of impunity, Syrian civil society organisations have expressed concerns regarding how these processes should be conducted, including their legal framing and safeguards.

The report outlines key elements for credible accountability processes, including:
• characterisation of crimes in alignment with international law
• robust procedural safeguards in accordance with fair trial standards
• meaningful victim participation
• practical recommendations for national and international actors

“The report reflects a shared effort by Syrian civil society and victims’ groups to articulate what credible accountability should look like at this stage,” said representatives of the participating Syrian civil society and victims’ organisations. “At a time when processes are beginning to take shape, it is critical that they are grounded in principles that ensure justice for victims and long-term legitimacy.”

The report is intended to support more informed engagement by international actors, including the United Nations, the European Union, and key states, as they engage with these developments.
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Notes to editors
Spokespeople are available for interviews in Arabic and English.

For media inquiries, please contact:
• media@thesyriacampaign.org
• communication@scm.ngo

The undersigned Syrian victims’ associations and civil society organizations affirm that transitional justice constitutes a fundamental pillar of any serious path toward building sustainable peace and stability in Syria. It is impossible to envision a genuine political and social transition toward a state based on equal citizenship, rights and duties, and the rule of law without addressing the legacy of gross human rights violations and guaranteeing the rights of all victims—without discrimination—to truth, justice, accountability, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence. They also affirm that the transitional justice process must recognize victims as equal citizens—regardless of the parties or individuals responsible for the violations committed against them—and must be grounded in their active participation in shaping their future.

The group believes that the meaningful participation of civil society and victims’ associations is not merely a technical or advisory contribution, but rather an inherent right, as they are direct stakeholders and active actors with legitimate standing in designing the future of justice in the country. Accordingly, the coalition of Syrian associations and organizations initiated a broad consultation and review process of the draft law and related policies on transitional justice. They submitted their expertise and observations to the National Transitional Justice Commission to ensure the inclusiveness of the process and to contribute to the development of a legal framework that reflects international best practices in transitional justice while aligning with the local Syrian context. This expertise builds on years of accumulated joint work supporting this path, including recent efforts to formulate a shared vision for transitional justice in Syria and the launch of the document “General Principles on Justice, Truth, and Equity” in September 2025.

While emphasizing that the success of the transitional justice process requires genuine openness from transitional justice bodies and institutions to the expertise of civil society and victims’ associations, and also requires ensuring the effective participation of victims and their representatives at all stages of designing and implementing transitional justice pathways, the group prepared a detailed memorandum exceeding seventy pages of legal, technical, and operational observations on the draft law and submitted it in writing to the Commission. This memorandum focused on several core issues related to the effectiveness and inclusiveness of the transitional justice process. Among the most important points emphasized were:
1. The law must be written in precise, neutral legal language with clearly defined terminology and must completely avoid any political language, expressions, or terms that create political narratives affecting legal neutrality.
2. The law must adopt an objective and comprehensive definition of transitional justice that includes all gross human rights violations, regardless of the parties or individuals responsible for them or suspected of committing them. The law must recognize the complex nature of the armed conflict in Syria and the multiplicity of parties involved, ensuring that violations committed by all such parties are addressed without discrimination, and must not limit the scope of transitional justice to crimes “caused by the Assad regime.”
3. The law must explicitly provide a comprehensive definition of victims that ensures recognition of all of them and guarantees their equal enjoyment of the rights resulting from that status, without exclusion or discrimination in access to truth, justice, and reparations, regardless of the parties or individuals responsible for the violations, or whether those responsible have been identified.
4. The temporal scope of the law must be expanded to include all crimes and violations committed after 8 December 2024 until the adoption of a permanent constitution for the country, preventing any legal vacuum in addressing gross violations during the transitional period. It should also include, through some transitional justice mechanisms—particularly the right to truth, recognition, and memorialization—violations whose roots go back to before 1970, ensuring that the historical context of these violations is not overlooked.
3. The law must include clear provisions guaranteeing the effective and meaningful participation of victims, their families, victims’ associations, and civil society organizations in all stages of the transitional justice process, including participation in decision-making, the design of relevant policies and mechanisms, and their implementation, follow-up, and monitoring.
6. The law must include clear legal guarantees ensuring the institutional independence of the National Commission for Transitional Justice and the independence of its members, along with clear mechanisms for appointment, dismissal, and replacement, and a precise definition of its relationship with the executive and judicial branches to ensure cooperation without subordination or interference. It must also establish clear organizational rules for distributing competencies among the various committees and units within the Commission and define lines of responsibility and coordination to prevent overlap and conflict.
7. The law must explicitly provide for full compliance with and supremacy of international law in interpreting and applying its provisions, including respect for victims’ rights, judicial independence, fair trial standards, the definition of crimes and criminal responsibility according to international law, the prohibition of the death penalty, and recognition of enforced disappearance as a distinct international crime.
8. A gender-sensitive approach must be adopted across all components of transitional justice, including ensuring equal participation and representation of women and appropriate responses to the harms they have suffered.

At the same time, the undersigned associations and organizations express concern regarding the handling of certain issues related to gross violations, reparations, accountability, or political settlements outside the framework of transitional justice and through mechanisms separate from it, in the absence of clarity, transparency, and a governing legal framework for such procedures. This could lead to the politicization of the entire process and reinforce impunity.

They emphasize the importance of addressing all issues related to truth-seeking, accountability, and reparations within an integrated transitional justice framework that guarantees respect for victims’ rights, strengthens the principles of transparency and accountability, contributes to building public trust in the transitional justice process and its institutions as well as state institutions, and ensures complementarity of roles.

They also stress that the success of the transitional justice process requires the National Commission for Transitional Justice to adopt a clear and explicit approach that considers civil society and its institutions as essential partners in making this process succeed, and to ensure the protection of civic space beyond its own processes. The undersigned organizations express concerns at the challenges and risks faced by civil society as a result of attempts by other entities to restrict or constrain civic space through burdensome and obstructive administrative, security, or political measures. They affirm that the future Syria must refrain from any practices that reproduce the patterns of exclusion that paved the way for the painful past violations suffered by Syrians, as such protection constitutes a structural condition for guaranteeing non-recurrence. This makes it imperative for the National Commission for Transitional Justice to be the first body to demand and work toward such protection, including by demanding reform and the end of such practices as part of guarantees of non-recurrence.

In conclusion, the undersigned associations and organizations affirm that transitional justice is not merely a legal framework or a formal governmental process, but rather a long-term political and social process that requires serious political will and allows for civil, political, and social interaction serving the interests of a transitional justice path that addresses the legacy of violations, delivers justice to victims, rebuilds the relationship between the state and society on the basis of trust, accountability, and mutual recognition, and lays the foundations for a future based on justice, dignity, and the rule of law.

From this perspective, the undersigned associations and organizations affirm that they will continue to play their role in following up on and monitoring this process and in providing the knowledge and expertise necessary to support the development of the legal and institutional framework for transitional justice in Syria in a way that enhances its effectiveness and inclusiveness. They also call on the National Commission for Transitional Justice, in this context, to commit to the following:

1. Adopting and publishing a comprehensive strategy or action plan within a clear timeframe that defines objectives, priorities, implementation phases, and indicators for measurement, ensuring transparency and participation and enabling systematic tracking of progress and performance evaluation.
2. Establishing regular and transparent mechanisms for evaluation and review, including publishing periodic reports on progress and challenges, including a report explaining the level of progress and challenges since the establishment of the Commission up to date, in a way that makes information available to the public and strengthens transparency, accountability, and oversight.
3. Establishing regular, transparent, and formal mechanisms for communication, consultation, and coordination between the Commission and civil society and victims’ associations, ensuring that they are informed sufficiently in advance about the course of work and are able to participate in the development of relevant policies, laws, and procedures.

Signatory organisations:
1. The Day After
2. Truth and Justice Charter
3. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression
4. Women Now for Development
5 Seen for Civil Peace
6. Syrian Legal Development Programme
7. Dawlaty
8. Bidayetna
9. Syrians for Truth and Justice
10. Adalaty
11. Transformative Pathways
12. Dar Justice
13. The Syria Campaign
14. Syrian Archive
15. Badael
16. Free Syrian Lawyers Association
17. Justice for Life
18. Lawyers and Doctors for Human Rights

After more than a decade of conflict, Syria is entering a phase where reconstruction is no longer a distant prospect but an emerging reality. Cities and towns across the country bear the marks of prolonged violence and economic collapse. The scale of destruction is immense, and so too is the urgency of rebuilding. Yet reconstruction in Syria is not simply a technical or financial challenge. It is, fundamentally, a political and social process that will shape the country’s future for decades to come.

Reconstruction is not only about restoring infrastructure; it is about redefining the relationship between citizens, institutions, and the economy. If approached without adequate safeguards, it risks entrenching the very patterns of exclusion, corruption, and dispossession that contributed to the uprising in the first place. For this reason, Syria’s reconstruction must be guided by a human rights-centred approach, one that places accountability, inclusion, and the protection of rights at the heart of recovery.

Comparative experiences underscore the stakes. In Iraq, reconstruction was undermined by corruption and weak institutional oversight, eroding public trust. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, reconstruction reinforced ethnic divisions embedded in governance and property systems. In Lebanon, redevelopment prioritized elite interests, producing exclusion and inequality. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, large-scale investment failed to build accountable institutions or deliver equitable outcomes. These cases point to a consistent lesson: reconstruction that neglects rights and governance risks reproducing instability rather than resolving it.

The Central Risk: HLP Rights and the Politics of Reconstruction

In Syria, the most immediate and consequential risks of reconstruction are concentrated around housing, land, and property (HLP) rights. Millions of Syrians have been displaced, many of whom lost homes, land, or the documentation needed to prove ownership. In this context, reconstruction without clear restitution and compensation mechanisms risks formalizing dispossession on a large scale.

Developments in Damascus offer a critical warning. The framework established under Decree 66 illustrates how redevelopment can transform areas of informal ownership into formalized investment zones through complex shareholding systems. In practice, these systems have proven inaccessible to many original residents, particularly those displaced or lacking documentation. What appears as urban planning can therefore operate as a mechanism for restructuring property relations in ways that exclude former inhabitants.

More recent controversies in Jobar and Qaboun suggest that similar dynamics persist. Proposals to redevelop these heavily damaged districts have raised concerns among displaced residents that reconstruction will proceed without meaningful guarantees for return, restitution, or fair compensation. Planning processes have advanced with limited transparency, reinforcing perceptions that redevelopment prioritizes large-scale investment over the inalienable rights of affected communities.

These dynamics are rooted in longer-standing patterns. Under Assad, legal and planning frameworks were used not simply to regulate urban development, but to exercise control over populations and territory. Laws enabled the reclassification and redevelopment of areas in ways that facilitated land seizure, often affecting communities already marginalized by displacement or perceived political affiliation.

At the same time, the Assad regime refrained from formalizing large informal neighbourhoods that expanded with urban growth and migration. As a result, significant segments of the population remained without secure property rights or legal recognition. These areas were often deprived of services and protections, while remaining subject to administrative and security control. During the conflict, many of these communities bore a disproportionate cost, further deepening their vulnerability.

Crucially, these patterns have been reinforced by limited transparency and weak public oversight. The role of Damascus Governorate in projects linked to Decree 66, as well as more recent planning in Jobar and Qaboun, has been marked by restricted access to information, unclear decision-making processes, and minimal opportunities for affected communities to participate or challenge redevelopment plans. In such conditions, reconstruction risks reinforcing governance practices in which law becomes a tool not only for urban development, but for managing populations and consolidating economic and political control.

Without a human rights-centred approach, these dynamics are likely to persist, embedding dispossession, exclusion, and inequality into the very foundations of reconstruction.

In addition, reconstruction involves large financial flows, procurement processes, and public-private partnerships. In contexts where institutions remain weak or opaque, these processes are particularly vulnerable to corruption and elite capture. In Syria, where politically connected business networks have long shaped economic life, reconstruction could reinforce these dynamics unless meaningful safeguards are introduced.

Corruption in reconstruction is not merely a technical issue. It has direct human rights implications. When resources are diverted or misallocated, the state’s ability to provide essential services, healthcare, education, housing, and infrastructure, is undermined. In this sense, corruption becomes a barrier to the realization of economic and social rights.

Reconstruction also risks deepening inequalities. Large-scale projects may concentrate investment in select areas while neglecting communities most affected by displacement and destruction. Without deliberate efforts to ensure inclusive development, reconstruction may produce uneven recovery, creating visible zones of redevelopment alongside persistent marginalization.

What a Human Rights-Centred Approach Requires

A human rights-centred reconstruction process integrates international human rights standards into economic recovery. It treats reconstruction not as an end in itself, but as a means of building a more just, inclusive, and accountable society.

Participation is essential. Communities affected by conflict and displacement must be meaningfully involved in decisions regarding redevelopment, housing, and local economic planning. Without participation, reconstruction risks reflecting the priorities of political and economic elites rather than the needs of residents.

Transparency and accountability are equally critical. Open procurement processes, accessible public records, and independent oversight mechanisms are necessary to prevent corruption and ensure that reconstruction resources are used in the public interest. This also requires strengthening institutions capable of investigating abuses and resolving disputes.

At the centre of any credible reconstruction strategy must be the protection of HLP rights. This includes mechanisms for restitution, compensation, and dispute resolution that are accessible to displaced populations, including refugees. Without such safeguards, reconstruction risks locking in patterns of dispossession and undermining prospects for return and reconciliation.

The role of the private sector is also important. Ensuring responsible business conduct requires adherence to international standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This entails conducting human rights due diligence and addressing potential and actual adverse human rights impacts.

Reconstruction in Syria is not a neutral or purely technical process. It reflects choices about who benefits, who participates, and whose rights are protected. The patterns already visible in Damascus, particularly around housing, land, and property rights, offer a clear warning of how reconstruction can entrench exclusion if left unchecked.

A human rights-centred approach does not stand in opposition to reconstruction; it is a prerequisite for its success. By embedding principles of inclusion, transparency, and accountability, Syria has the opportunity not only to rebuild what was destroyed, but to reshape the foundations of governance and economic life.

The challenge is not simply to reconstruct cities, but to ensure that reconstruction contributes to justice, return, and long-term stability.

Written by: Eyad Hamid, Head of Human Rights & Business Unit, SLDP