Fadel Abdulghany
The active participation of local communities in the design, implementation, and monitoring of justice mechanisms is a prerequisite for the success of any transitional justice process. The discourse surrounding this issue, or what is called “local ownership in transitional justice,” has undergone a profound transformation over the past two decades.
What began as a rhetorical commitment has evolved into a sophisticated analytical framework that addresses the real-world complexities of post-conflict societies. This shift reflects a realization that the automatic projection of international transitional justice models onto diverse local contexts actually undermines the very communities these models are meant to serve.
Understanding has shifted from considering this active participation (or local ownership) as a procedural act to recognizing it as a multidimensional necessity, recognizing that societies emerging from conflict have different histories, cultural contexts, and concepts of justice, which cannot be adequately contained or represented through standardized models.
Ignoring this complexity has led to the emergence of transitional justice mechanisms that, despite their technical sophistication and commitment to international standards, have often remained disconnected from the lived experiences of those most affected by past violations.
The Three-Dimensional Framework of “Local Ownership”
Reconstructing the concept of local ownership in the context of transitional justice requires an analytical framework that captures the complexity of community participation in post-conflict justice processes.
Contemporary transitional justice researchers have developed a three-dimensional model comprising effective, process, and content control—interconnected dimensions that represent distinct aspects of how local communities exercise effective ownership of transitional justice mechanisms. This is precisely what we recommend applying in Syria.
- Effective Control: Beyond Advisory Roles
This first dimension focuses on the tangible mechanisms that enable local communities to exercise effective control over transitional justice processes.
It goes beyond the limited participation models that have characterized many international interventions, where local actors are limited to advisory roles, while substantive decisions remain in the hands of international experts or national elites.
True control includes the ability to make important decisions regarding the design and implementation of justice mechanisms, as well as active participation in the allocation of resources that determine the scope and direction of these processes.
A radical shift in this context represents a reconceptualization of affected communities not simply as passive recipients of external interventions, but rather as actors who chart their own paths to justice.
This is not limited to procedural changes. Rather, it requires a restructuring of power relations within transitional processes, so that communities are not merely granted the right to consult, but are also given the authority to make binding decisions regarding the adopted mechanisms, adapt them to suit the local context, and prioritize their outcomes.
- Process: Bottom-up Approach and Participatory Mechanisms
This dimension focuses on the procedural aspects of local ownership, emphasizing the importance of a bottom-up, participatory, community-based approach in the context of transitional justice. It recognizes that the legitimacy of these processes rests not only on their final outcomes, but also on how they are formulated and implemented.
Thus, this dimension examines how justice mechanisms can emerge from and respond to community needs, rather than being imposed by external, top-down orders.
Procedural legitimacy is based on genuine inclusiveness that goes beyond symbolic representation, by providing spaces for multiple voices within society to truly influence the course of justice. This participation must extend to the implementation, monitoring, and ongoing adaptation of mechanisms.
The fundamental challenge here is developing procedural mechanisms capable of accommodating diverse and sometimes conflicting societal viewpoints, without compromising internal cohesion or effectiveness in addressing past violations. For this reason, we at the Syrian Network for Human Rights have recommended that a transitional justice body be established through a law passed by the Legislative Council.
- The Core: Integrating Local Values and Priorities
This dimension focuses on the core structure of transitional justice, examining ways to integrate local values, practices, and priorities into the design and implementation of justice mechanisms.
This dimension poses the most significant challenge: how can concepts of justice based on local cultural contexts be reconciled with international human rights standards? Societies’ priorities in this regard vary based on their cultural backgrounds, historical experiences, and immediate needs, and these priorities often diverge substantially from those adopted in international normative models.
The Tension Between Local Autonomy and International Standards
The integration of local mechanisms into transitional justice processes inevitably creates profound tensions between the autonomy of communities and international human rights standards.
This tension goes beyond the technical obstacles of legal coordination to reveal fundamental issues related to the universality of principles of justice and the legitimacy of imposing external standards on societies emerging from mass violence.
Navigating the Dialectic of the Global and the Particular
The conflict between cultural relativism and the universality of human rights in transitional justice contexts is not merely an academic debate; it manifests itself in concrete challenges when designing mechanisms that respect local concepts of justice, without compromising adherence to international human rights principles.
This dilemma becomes clear when traditional justice practices conflict with agreed-upon international standards, such as due process, gender equality, and the protection of minorities.
Locating and Interpreting the Norm
The concept of “norm localization” provides a more accurate framework for understanding how international human rights standards interact with local contexts, compared to simplistic binary models that assume acceptance or rejection.
This concept assumes that local actors are not passive recipients of international norms, but rather active interpreters who adapt, or even challenge, them and reframe them to suit their specific needs and circumstances.
The localization process is embodied in complex negotiations that give international norms new meanings and applications when they are integrated within the local value framework.
Local actors interact with these standards through translation processes that include linguistic and conceptual adaptations, which localize concepts developed in international forums.
Thus, the resulting transformation does not necessarily constitute a weakening or distortion of international principles. Rather, it may represent a fruitful hybridization process that makes the standards more influential and effective in specific contexts.
The challenge lies in distinguishing between legitimate adaptation, which preserves the essential protective functions of the standards, and misleading distortion that weakens these protections under the guise of cultural translation.
The Role of the Victims at the Center
Redefining the concept of local ownership in transitional justice requires a fundamental shift from representing communities through traditional structures to centering the role of survivors.
This shift reflects the conviction that true local ownership cannot be achieved simply by engaging existing authorities or cultural institutions, but rather by focusing on the experiences and aspirations of those who directly suffered violations.
Transcending Traditional Power Structures
The conflation of local ownership and traditional authority is one of the most entrenched and problematic assumptions in transitional justice practices. Established community leaders, customary institutions, and traditional mechanisms are often assumed to be authentic representatives of local perspectives and interests.
However, these assumptions ignore the power relations inherent within these structures and the ways in which these structures may systematically exclude certain groups, particularly women and those whose experiences pose a threat to dominant societal narratives.
Survivor-centered approaches represent a radical reorientation of transitional justice, shifting the priority from institutional efficiency and political stability to addressing the needs and experiences of the most affected groups.
While institutions typically focus on quantitative achievement and normative compliance, these approaches prioritize the quality of participation, the relevance of outcomes for those affected, and the transformative potential of justice processes for survivors.
Emotional Communities and Mobilization through Patriotism
Recent studies have demonstrated the pivotal role of emotional dimensions in mobilizing survivors and driving transitional justice movements.
This approach challenges classical rationalist assumptions about political action, recognizing that survivors’ emotions (such as anger, grief, hope, and solidarity) are not simply individual responses but essential sources of collective action and political transformation.
The concept of “emotional communities” captures how survivors construct collective identities based on shared emotional experiences that transcend individual pain and facilitate sustained mobilization for justice.
The role of emotion is not limited to the initial motivation of a movement; it extends to maintaining group cohesion and motivating it over the long term, despite institutional marginalization or the passage of time.
Emotional practices (such as celebrations, testimonies, and artistic expressions) not only play therapeutic roles, but also constitute political tools for preserving collective memory and affirming demands for recognition and justice.
These dimensions are particularly important in the context of Syrian transitional justice, which requires a mobilization spanning fourteen, even fifty, years of pursuit of redress.
Structural Challenges Facing Meaningful Participation
Despite the clear rise in human rights discourse supporting survivor participation and promoting local ownership within transitional justice processes, structural obstacles remain a significant obstacle to achieving effective participation by affected communities.
The Politics of Waiting and Temporal Inequality
The temporal dimensions of transitional justice are often invisible, yet profoundly impactful tools of structural exclusion. The politics of waiting (i.e., the prolonged periods between the occurrence of violations and their acknowledgment or redress) represent a form of power that reshapes survivors’ experiences and limits their ability to engage effectively.
This temporal inequality manifests not only in the form of delays but also as a systematic mechanism of marginalization that transforms survivors from active claimants to passive initiators, weakening their individual agency and undermining the potential for collective mobilization.
Barriers to access in this context go beyond physical or procedural barriers to include temporal exclusions that exacerbate the vulnerability of survivors, particularly marginalized groups such as those living in rural areas, those with limited education, women heads of households, and those whose trauma prevents them from navigating complex bureaucratic processes.
The complexity of procedures and systems designed without consideration for survivors’ realities contribute to an implicit filtering system that allows effective access to justice mechanisms to only a limited group of victims, undermining the essential requirement for broad participation.
Procedural delays are not simply administrative failures; they embody a form of temporary violence that exacerbates the effects of the original violations. The long wait for recognition, investigation, or redress is itself a continuation of marginalization.
This particularly affects older survivors, who may die before receiving justice, leaving behind unfulfilled claims and inherited trauma for future generations.
Attempts to normalize these delays, through official rhetoric that attributes them to resource constraints or a high caseload, obscure the way survivors’ claims are managed through temporary systems that reproduce marginalization rather than address it.
Implementation Gap
The gap between declared political commitments to survivor participation and the actual implementation of these commitments is one of the most significant structural challenges that transcends the differences in contexts or tools adopted.
This gap manifests itself at several levels: from the failure to translate policies into clear implementation steps, to the weak allocation of necessary resources, and the lack of political will to maintain the participatory approach when it threatens existing balances or complicates predetermined outcomes.
The political exploitation of transitional justice processes is one of the most prominent structural obstacles to effective participation. When these processes are transformed into tools for political legitimacy, electoral propaganda, or international image management, survivor participation becomes valuable only to the extent that it serves these utilitarian goals.
This exploitation manifests itself in multiple forms: selective inclusion of survivors who support official narratives, timing initiatives according to political agendas rather than the needs of victims, and focusing on symbolism at the expense of structural transformation.
Over time, survivors realize that their invitation to participate is intended for show, not empowerment, generating a sense of detachment and derision that undermines the legitimacy of the entire transitional justice process.
Towards a Comprehensive Approach
This analysis of the dimensions of local ownership in the transitional justice process in Syria demonstrates the complexity and necessity of reconciling community-based approaches with international human rights standards.
Moving beyond critique requires moving to offer practical and methodological alternatives, through the development of innovative policy tools that address the tensions between local autonomy and universal principles, while maintaining a focus on the role of survivors at the heart of this process.
These themes will be expanded upon in the next article in this series, which seeks to outline the contours of transitional justice in the Syrian context.
