Equal before the law? Transitional justice in Syria
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Transcript(88 claims)
The Economist. Hello, and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. Today on the show, the next in our America at two fifty series and a curious whiskey making boom in China.
But first.
In a Damascus courtroom, an old man stands in a cage. He has a pained expression on his face. He's wearing a black and white prison uniform.
Gareth Brown is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist.
Artif Najib is on trial for murder, torture, and orchestrating massacres. Fifteen years ago, this man was the security chief of Deda, a city in Southern Syria. When the parents of children arrested in protest in 2011 came to mister Najib, who was head of security in the city at the time, to beg for mercy, he told them to forget about their sons, to go home, and to make new ones. That brutal period in Dera morphed into nearly fourteen years of nationwide repression, bloodshed, and war. But on May 10, the Syrian courts finally began to catch up with the criminals who ran Bashar al Assad's regime.
Atif Najib is the first man to take the stand.
And so before we speak about this specific case, what does the justice system in Syria after the revolution now look like?
Well, I think it's a judicial system in transition like the rest of the country, and, essentially, there are two tracks. Last year, president Ahmad Shahra announced this transitional justice commission, which is a special body which was going to look at the idea of transitional justice, look at lessons from other conflicts, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, places like that, and try to develop a system, perhaps a special court for the Syrian context. So this was one track, and it was very much a more ideological, international, human rights law led process. However, the trials that have begun in the last few weeks are actually happening as a result of movements by the Syrian Ministry of Justice, and they're fundamentally based on the legal system that already existed in Syria prior to Assad's falling. Syria had fifty years of rule by Bashar al Assad and before that, his father Hafiz al Assad.
And, really, that has left the country with a judicial system that is not very well equipped to deal with these sorts of crimes. There is no crimes against humanity or war crimes on the Syrian statute book. Legislation around things like command responsibility and indirect responsibility for crimes is also quite weak. So they are being tried under essentially Syrian criminal law, and that makes it difficult to get them in court on some of the more serious crimes.
So coming back then to the trial of mister Atef Najib, why is his trial so important here?
There's a few reasons. One, he's the first cousin of Bashar al Assad. He was captured in a raid in January 2025, and he's probably the most senior official from Bashar's regime currently in the custody of the new Syrian government. But I also think his involvement in Deda, which is a city where, really, the Syrian revolution and these protests that he is alleged to have repressed are what kick started the whole revolution that turned into 15 of civil war. So Atif Najib is the face of that very early, very callous repression.
He's a name that every Syrian knows. So there's an element of symbolism. He wasn't the face of the regime, but he's inherently associated with that repression right at the beginning of the Syrian revolution.
And how do you expect his trial to go?
I mean, firstly, this is going to be a big media and public spectacle in Syria. Everyone is watching. If you go to the court on days when there are hearings, hundreds of his alleged victims, their families, people who lost relatives in Deda are queuing up outside the court trying to get in. Nearly eighteen months after the fall of Bashar, many people feel the government really hasn't done anything regarding transitional justice. But it's also an important test for the Syrian legal system.
What is the legal basis for these trials? Is this gonna be a kangaroo court with the sole aim of punishment and retribution? Or can Syria and the Syrian government, the Transitional Justice Commission, demonstrate that they're capable of putting on a rigorous and fair trial in which the outcome can be sort of internationally lauded, but also accepted within the country, within Syria itself. One thing that's noticeable is the government's interpretation of transitional justice. Many people in Syria will say, look.
Every side has blood on its hands. Certainly, members of Ahmad al Sharra's own group and other armed factions that have supported him in the presidency are accused of pretty gross human rights violations and war crimes themselves.
So in that sense, a trial that is designed to show the legitimacy of the justice system might fall short, at least in the eyes of Syrians who know that there is blood on the hands of both sides.
Certainly. This is a double edged sword for Sharra. If you open the box of transitional justice too enthusiastically, it could swing back, it could hit your base. It could hit your closest associates. And I think beyond that, the Syrian president, Ahmed al Sharra, has gone even further than that, and he's actually recruited some of the people who were part of the regime.
Some senior figures have been brought into his government to help with particular things. So working on security, working with the Alawite community, working on international affairs. And that has angered people because some of these people were also closely associated with some of the worst crimes of the last fifteen years. And all of this anger is not just an emotion or a sentiment, but you can see it bubbling up, especially in places outside of Damascus. Reprisal killing, sectarian attacks, people really taking the law into their own hands because their neighbor wronged them many years ago.
And I think that is a key driver of why these trials are happening now. The government knows that if it isn't seen to be doing something about transitional justice, this kind of street level vengeance is only going to get worse and destabilize the country.
And what about the international angle? There is a desire for legitimacy there too. How will these trials go ahead in the legal system you described that doesn't even have provisions for the crimes that are basically being alleged here?
What the judges kinda leading this trial have said is that they are going to use international law and treaties to essentially plug in the gaps. So where they don't have laws that are appropriate on the statute book, they'll use things like the Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute, and basically apply them as Syrian law. Now when you speak to lawyers and legal experts, some are quite excited and some are quite nervous. There is a chance for the Syrian judicial system to do something really dynamic and really pioneering when it comes to trying some of these war crimes. But I think there's also this worry that the legal basis isn't that sound.
But Syria's new friends in the international community are watching closely, particularly in Europe, in The US, Canada, places like that, and they don't want this to be a show trial. And the basis of Shudder's new government, it's not democratic, but it is built on some form of legitimacy. And I think he knows that that legitimacy could be swayed one way or another, depending on whether these trials are seen as a success or a failure internationally. One thing that does come through when you speak to people involved in the trial is that they're not going to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Thanks very much for your time, Gareth.
Thank you, Jason.
I wanna direct your attention to the latest episode of the weekend intelligence. My colleague, Slavea Chankova, had been struggling to breastfeed her daughter. So like the health correspondent she is, she went looking for answers in the latest research on human lactation. Problem was, there just isn't very much of it. That goes all the way back to the 1970s, a schism between advocates of the breast and those of the bottle.
So for struggling mothers today, there's not much help to be had. That, at last, is changing as a handful of researchers try to uncover the mysteries of a baby's first food. Check out the weekend intelligence in the very same feed where you found this episode. I may have mentioned before, July marks America's 200 birthday. We have been diving deep into our own archive to chart American history through the lens of The Economist's coverage down the centuries.
Today's historical window covers the Cold War, Vietnam, and a fractured America. And
for the peoples behind the iron curtain, there's a new gleam of hope.
At the end of the second world war, two great powers eyed each other across a ruined Europe. Relay the
voice of America to listeners in communist countries.
Annie Crabill is a senior digital editor at the Economist.
America and The Soviet Union, once allies, were now ideological rivals. The Cold War had begun. The Soviet Union consolidated its grip on Eastern Europe. And in 1949, it tested an atomic bomb. That opened a new kind of conflict, ideological and global, but without direct fighting because of mutually assured destruction.
New proxy wars began on the Korean Peninsula and then in Vietnam. As America resisted Soviet expansion and tried to push a liberal order abroad. Back home, the civil rights movement was picking up pace. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public schools denied black Americans equal treatment. It was the first blow to the Jim Crow era.
The Economist supported the move.
This decision strikes at the root of racial prejudice.
The next year, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus.
Good evening. The television and radio stations of The United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion
The first televised presidential debate in 1960 saw a youthful, smiling John F. Kennedy pitted against a tired looking, sweaty Richard Nixon. Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected president, and his brief time in office was a triumph in image making, beginning with his inaugural address.
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
Even in his first week, president Kennedy set a new tone of urgency. The Economist said at the time
Penache and Joie de Vivre are the only words to describe the style with which president Kennedy has stepped, vaulted is a better word, into his august office.
His years in office were shaped by Cuba. In his first year, he botched an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. But in 1962, he managed the Cuban Missile Crisis with deft diplomacy.
From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, president Kennedy died at 1PM Central Standard Time.
Kennedy died by assassination in 1963, an almost mythical figure with a sense of promise unfulfilled.
To an oasis of freedom and justice, I have a dream. In
the same year, Martin Luther King Jr. Gave his now famous speech.
We'll one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream.
Congress passed a civil rights act in 1964, which officially ended segregation in public places. King kept campaigning for economic justice for poor Americans of all races, but he too was assassinated in 1968.
I'm gonna step off a limb.
Meanwhile, the Cold War continued even in space.
It's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.
On 07/20/1969, America set down two astronauts on the moon. It was a remarkable feat, and it marked the beginning of the space age. America's involvement in Vietnam was a continuation of the ideological battle against communist expansion.
But we will not surrender, and we will not retreat.
Lyndon Johnson escalated the conflict. So that by the end of 1969, there were more than half a million troops in Vietnam. But as the war there grew, so too did opposition to it. Anti war protests attracted millions of Americans. America's conventional superiority proved ill suited to a guerrilla war.
The war fought to save Vietnam devastated it. In the end, America withdrew. The Economist reported
The Vietnam War ended at 10:00 on Wednesday morning, not with a bang, but with a crumple. The victors seem to have made no attempt to organize an uprising in the city to greet them. The communist supporters cheered the arriving troops, but the accounts of Western reporters suggest that most people watched them in silence.
Having lost more than 58,000 soldiers and contributed to the death of 1,000,000 Vietnamese, America was left questioning its power, purpose, and liberal values. War by Edwin Starr powerfully captured the mood of the Vietnam generation. This anti war feeling became the heart of a counterculture that rejected authority and hierarchy. Instead, it embraced personal liberation, sexual, spiritual, and psychological. Many older Americans were repulsed by this, and twice they elected Richard Nixon, who promised to restore law and order before himself being forced to resign in 1974 for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
Good evening. In a landmark ruling, the supreme court today legalized abortions.
Texas Roe v Wade was the bookend of a historic progressive era for the Supreme Court. The ruling was a triumph for feminist politics. But it also prompted a huge backlash, fueling the rise of a Christian conservative movement determined to overturn the decision.
And we are very earnestly convicted.
The religious right, once an upstart
That unless America has a spiritual visitation.
Was quickly on the ascendant.
We shall cease to enjoy the liberties and the freedoms that we have for two hundred years of joy.
We'll see you back next time for our next chapter, neoliberalism, globalization, and backlash.
Jason, I see you got something there. What are you unboxing?
I have been provided by my producer with a bottle of Gua Long blended whiskey, fine quality aged in oak cask Hunan China.
Wow. A Hunan whiskey. I have not had one from Hunan yet, so I'm I'm really interested to hear what you think about this.
Well, I think, first of all, that it is eleven in the morning, and, I suffer for my art. But in the interests of good journalism now for those who don't know, Don Weiland is the economist China business and finance editor, and he's the one who's been looking into whiskey. But I am trying to, in a Gonzo journalism way, join in the reporting. Hang on one second. It's not very Scottish Malty.
When I've been tasting these Chinese whiskeys, it has been a little bit hard for me to tell how they are different from what you get from Scotland. But, generally, I've found them to be decent. But you've
been looking into this because there's something of a whiskey thing going on in China.
So there's been something of a distillery building boom in China. I think there's something around 50 distilleries that have been built in the past couple years, and there's more under construction right now. They're being built by local booze enthusiasts, but also by multinationals like Diageo, which is a British spirits maker, and by Pernod Ricard, the French spirits maker. When these multinationals invest in distilleries in China, they build them in beautiful places. The Yuntuo Distillery is in a quiet village.
It costs about a $120,000,000 to build. It's got an incredible tasting room. It's almost 30 meters tall, and it has about a thousand whiskey barrels lined on the walls. It's really an incredible sight.
I think what confuses me about this story is I we've spoken on the show before about how basically booze sales are slumping in China. Why would there be a whiskey boom at the same time?
It's very strange. So if you look at wine sales and beer sales, they're declining. I don't know if you've ever tried Baijio. It's this translucent spirit, which has a very high proof to it. So it can be, you know, something like 50% alcohol.
Sales of Baijio fell by 15% last year, and this is by far the most popular spirit in China. The reason behind that, from what we can tell, is that young people are drinking less, and consumption in general is not doing great in China right now. So retail consumption, food and beverage consumption. When you go to a restaurant, people in big cities like Shanghai or Beijing, they might not be ordering expensive bottles of wine when they go out. And that, I think, has had an impact on alcohol sales over the past couple of years.
Is this a like for like replacement then of Baijo or beer or wine, or is this something else altogether?
I think it's a bit different. So, you know, whiskey, of course, is a foreign product. Originally, it was imported into China before it was produced locally, and it's being viewed these days as something of a luxury product. And when we look at luxury spending in China on luxury products, handbags, shoes, really expensive stuff like that, that area is actually doing pretty well. What we're seeing consumption wise in China is kind of the hollowing out of mid tier products.
Really cheap stuff is very popular, and really expensive stuff is doing pretty well. That's why we see whiskey imports hitting a record high last year.
What about in the other direction, though? Is there an international market for the nascent Chinese whiskey industry?
So there wasn't a decade ago. Chinese whiskey makers exported something like $5,000,000 worth of whiskey. Fast forward to last year, and they're exporting 585,000,000 worth of whiskey. So suddenly, China has become a relevant whiskey exporter in the region. This is another reason why people are investing in distilleries in China.
They're seeing that there is actually a foreign market for their whiskey, and this is how, you know, the Hunan whiskey ended up in your studio today.
But is it trying to be Scottish whiskey, or is it trying to be Chinese whiskey a a thing in its own right? Because the Japanese, for example, have taken on the Scottish whiskey traditions and do something that is prize winningly close to the original. Is that what's going on in China?
What you have there, Jason, is a blended whiskey. That's mainly what you will see on the market in China right now, but we will see a lot more single malts. Chinese distilleries are definitely trying to take on the practices of Scottish distilleries, but they are trying to make it Chinese as well. So they're using Chinese oak to to age the whiskey. They want to increase the usage of domestic malts and local water and and things like that.
So there is a Chinese element to this. It's also worth pointing out that China just introduced its first national standards for single malt in February, and these are largely based on Scottish regulations. Some of these rules say that whiskey must be distilled in copper pots and aged for at least three years in barrels that are no larger than 700 liters. This has led some alcohol makers to be a little bit irritated with the importation of these foreign rules. I've heard that there's some Baijio companies that kind of wanted to make single malts in their own way.
But on the whole, this is probably a good thing for the industry, and it is going to make Chinese whiskey more like Scottish whiskey, I would say.
And more and more, I guess, we'll be seeing Chinese whiskey outside China.
You know, I I did get to sample some of the stuff at Yunto's distillery. They're not selling their their single malts yet. I sampled some stuff directly out of a barrel. Tasted pretty good
to me. Don, thanks. It was a pleasure as always, and I look forward to what advice you bring to us next.
Thanks, Jason.
That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
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