"The Right to Have Rights": Legal Identity Documentation in the Syrian Civil War

Abstract

During the Syrian civil war the gap left by the state in providing legal identity documentation has been filled by other actors. This has forced Syrians to navigate a course through webs of interlocking identity documents to garner small benefits and manage substantial risks. The situation disproportionately affects Syrian women, particularly their parental, inheritance, and property rights. In addition to the Syrian state, the Islamic State, the Syrian Interim Government/Syrian National Coalition, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham's Salvation Government, the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, and Turkey in the northern Euphrates Shield zone have all issued legal identity documentation at various times during the Syrian civil war. People need life-cycle events documented to ensure they and their children do not become stateless; to access humanitarian aid, local justice mechanisms, healthcare, and education; to ensure freedom of movement through internal checkpoints; and to conduct trade or real estate transactions. Driven primarily by necessity, many Syrians are attempting to access official, forged, or fraudulent documents through an expensive and unreliable underworld of brokers (samasira). Lack of documentation can mean Syrian women whose husbands have been killed, disappeared, displaced, or conscripted into the military are particularly at risk of losing or being unable to access property rights to which they are entitled. The problem of access to and/or lack of official identity documentation is a ticking time bomb that could lead to an entire generation of Syrians being undocumented. External states should advocate that the Syrian regime recognise prima facie the details of life-cycle events and property transactions contained in documents issued by non-state actors. This would ensure that future generations of Syrians have access to documentary evidence of these events. It would also minimise the long-term, cascading effects caused by lack of documentation.