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Fadel Abdulghany
On July 8, 2026, the American administration referred to Congress its decision concerning the rescission of the designation of Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism. This measure hasn’t entered into force yet, as it is subject to the review of Congress for a period of forty-five days. Thus, the United States has commenced completing the legal procedures required for rescinding the designation, at a time where the actual removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism hasn’t taken place.
The distinction that this announcement requires lies in separating the forward-looking assessment of the conduct of the current Syrian government from the retroactive responsibility for the crimes that were committed under the former Assad regime. Rescinding the designation changes the future legal treatment of the Syrian state; however, it doesn’t settle the legal responsibility of individuals, and it doesn’t extinguish the claims of the victims to their rights.
This designation is often presented as a single list; however, its principal legal effects are built, in reality, on a set of overlapping legislative authorities, namely: Section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2371), Section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. § 2780), and Section 1754(c) of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (50 U.S.C. § 4813(c)). Each of these laws provides two pathways for rescinding the designation.
The first pathway is built on the President issuing a certification stating that a fundamental change in the leadership of the government and its policies has occurred, and that it doesn’t support international terrorism and won’t provide such support in the future. As for the second pathway, it requires issuing a certification stating that the government hasn’t supported international terrorism during the preceding six months, coupled with similar assurances of a forward-looking nature regarding the future. The difference between the two pathways lies in the temporal dimension; the first is built on the occurrence of a structural break with the previous government, whereas the second is built on a documented period of change in governmental conduct.
Submitting a report to Congress at least forty-five days before the rescission decision enters into force isn’t required except under the second pathway. Hence, the announcement of a review period of forty-five days indicates that the administration has adopted the pathway of the non-provision of support for terrorism during the preceding six months, though the adopted legal certification must be reviewed before settling this conclusively. This point is important, because this pathway alone activates the mechanism of congressional objection provided for in the Arms Export Control Act.
The intervention of Congress during this period remains possible, though it is bound by specific constraints. It may adopt a joint resolution prohibiting the rescission of the designation before the expiry of the set period. However, this resolution must obtain the approval of both chambers of Congress, and it is then referred to the President. If the President uses the right of veto, the resolution won’t become an effective law unless the two chambers pass it again by a two-thirds majority in each of them. The current rescission of the designation doesn’t represent the first measure to lift sanctions; rather, it removes an independent legal layer that remained in place after the end of the comprehensive sanctions program, and it used to impose institutional, judicial, and political restrictions of its own.
Perhaps the most important effect from the practical standpoint relates to the banking and investment environment. It appears that the continuation of the designation of Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism has aggravated the risks of reputation and the phenomenon of over-compliance, even after many transactions became legally permissible in 2025. Rescinding the designation would ease this burden, and it would support the restoration of correspondent banking relations between financial institutions.
Nevertheless, banks will continue to assess the risks of money laundering and corruption, as well as the level of financial transparency, the independence of the judiciary, and the capacity of the Syrian counterpart institutions to comply with the regulatory requirements. Rescinding the designation changes what financial institutions are legally permitted to do; however, it doesn’t determine what those institutions will see as acceptable from the commercial and reputational standpoints.
Rescinding the designation doesn’t lead to dismantling the parallel structure of targeted sanctions. The individual sanctions imposed on Bashar al-Assad and his associates, the perpetrators of gross human rights violations, the Captagon trafficking networks, the persons linked to the chemical weapons program, ISIS and al-Qaeda, as well as Iran and its proxies, remain in force under independent legal authorities. Following the termination of the comprehensive sanctions program, the United States kept a more targeted sanctions framework, and it readapted it to focus on the pillars of the former regime, the gross violations, and the activities destabilizing the regional stability.
This decision should be placed in its proper framework with regard to transitional justice. It is a decision issued within the framework of the national law and policy of the United States, not a judgment on the crimes committed by the former Assad regime. It doesn’t absolve the perpetrators of those crimes, doesn’t extinguish the individual criminal responsibility, and doesn’t affect the evidence gathered by the Syrian and international bodies concerned with documentation.
From the perspective of the American statutory law, transitional justice, the protection of minorities, or constitutional reform aren’t considered conditions for rescinding the designation; the legal standard is limited to the non-support of international terrorism and the provision of future assurances of not supporting it. The absence of these elements from the statutory test doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant to the legitimacy of the normalization path or its sustainability; rather, it means only that they belong to a different legal and political framework.
Rescinding the designation changes the future legal treatment of the Syrian state; however, it doesn’t retroactively absolve the former regime, doesn’t extinguish the individual responsibility of the perpetrators of the crimes, and doesn’t settle the claims of the victims to their rights. These matters remain part of the independent legal structure of accountability and transitional justice.
Originally published on the Syrian newspaper Al-Thawra website (in Arabic)
