Taking Stock of Syria’s Approach to Transitional Justice

Abstract In December 2024, in a sweeping military campaign, the HTS overran several government strongholds in Syria and took Damascus, installing a transitional government and creating new institutions. According to Huntington’s model, this was a replacement transition which did not require the new rulers to negotiate a transitional agreement with the incumbent government. In this article, we argue that the HTS leadership nevertheless cannot freely choose among the available options of transitional justice, but instead is constrained by external and domestic factors, which are already about to push the new government into the direction of restorative and symbolic transitional justice measures. In view of Syria’s dire economic conditions, redistributive victim-centered justice is just as unlikely as harsh and broad punishment for perpetrators of past human rights abuses. The latter would be severely hampered by the new rulers’ rule-of-law commitments and the weakness of the post-al-Asad judiciary.