Legal Adaptation for the Syrian Constitutional Committee Formed Based on UN Security Council Resolution 2245

Abstract

Background: Presumably, constitution-making is a national process reflecting the state’s sovereignty and people's will. The severity of the conflict in Syria and its danger led the international community to intervene, and in 2015, the Security Council issued Resolution 2254 to settle the conflict. This resolution, in item 4, called for the start of the drafting process of a new Constitution for Syria; hereby, the Constitutional Committee was formed in Geneva in 2019 with the agreement of the conflict parties, the government and the opposition, and the consent of the international community represented by the United Nations. This research discusses the extent to which the intervention of the United Nations in the Syrian Constitutional Committee's formation and work in Geneva affects the principle of the Constitution's nationalism and state sovereignty. The research also discusses the legitimacy of the powers granted to this committee, whether in drafting a new constitution for the Syrian state or amending the current 2012 Constitution, and whether they conflict with the national sovereignty principle in considering the constitutional law principles. Methods: We relied on the analytical method to study the legal adaptation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee formed based on Security Council Resolution 2254. The impact of the United Nations intervention in the Syrian Constitutional Committee and whether it conflicts with the principle of national sovereignty depends on clarifying the role played by the United Nations in forming the committee and its ability to impose binding decisions on it. Achieving this objective requires analysing the powers of the Constitutional Committee in light of the principles and rules of constitutional law. This entails determining whether the committee possesses the full authority of the original constituent power to establish a new constitution for the state without referring to the people or if its jurisdiction is limited to drafting. Through this analytical method, we shall know whether the formation of the Constitutional Committee and the jurisdiction granted contradicts the principle of national sovereignty, which assumes that the Constitution is a national industry. Results and Conclusions: The formation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, authorised by the United Nations through the Security Council Resolution 2254, does not detract from Syrian national sovereignty nor conflict with the principle of constitutional nationalism. Firstly, the formation of the constituent authority responsible for establishing the Constitution is not a legal issue but rather derives its existence from reality, and this applies to the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which derived its existence from the Syrian reality conflict and with the agreement of its parties, government and opposition. Therefore, one cannot say that the formation of this committee is illegitimate or inconsistent with the principles of constitutional law, given the absence of a legal framework governing the mechanism for forming the constituent authority, whether in Syrian constitutional law or comparative constitutional law. The Constitution is a result of the circumstances and situations that have accompanied its emergence and determined the method of its establishment. Secondly, the Constitutional Committee is not a full constituent authority because it does not have the power to approve a new constitution or an amendment to the current Constitution in its sole discretion. It might adapt as a technical consensus committee whose role is limited to formulating proposals that require popular consent. Thirdly, It is arguable that Security Council Resolution 2254 and the decision to form the Syrian Constitutional Committee constitute the legal framework from which this committee derives its legitimacy and work. Therefore, we can say that the issue of forming the Syrian Constitutional Committee and its work has become a legal issue governed by an international legal framework, marking a departure from its previous extrajudicial status under national constitutional law.