Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, head of political affairs at the Syrian American Council, said the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee will introduce next week a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican and Democratic lawmakers to repeal the Syria Accountability Act of 2003 and the Syria Human Rights Accountability Act of 2012.
Ghanem described the step as part of the path toward lifting sanctions imposed on Syria after the fall of the Assad regime.
Ghanem said on X that the legal effects of the two laws remain in place despite their enforcement being suspended during the past period through exemptions and licenses obtained by Syria. He added that work continued over recent months to reach the stage of fully and permanently repealing both laws.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will discuss the bill next week, he said, noting that there is prior consensus to approve it within the committee and move it to subsequent legislative stages before it is presented to Congress.
Ghanem added that the push to repeal the two laws came “in anticipation of any future change in the political climate in Washington,” saying final repeal would provide a legal guarantee preventing the restrictions included in the laws from being reactivated in the future.
A Path That Began Last Year
Ghanem announced in September 2025 a joint move with members of the US Senate to include a legislative provision aimed at fully repealing both laws, saying at the time that suspending sanctions was not enough as long as their legal basis remained in place.
In a previous post, he explained that the effects of the two laws were effectively frozen by General License No. 25 issued by the US Treasury Department, in addition to later decisions taken by the US Commerce Department. However, those measures did not amount to full legislative repeal.
He said at the time that the goal of the move was to complete the process of lifting economic sanctions that had been imposed on Syria, and to prepare conditions for the resumption of economic and investment activity in the country after the political changes it had witnessed.
What Is the 2003 Syria Accountability Act?
The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, passed by the US Congress in 2003 and signed by former US President George W. Bush, is one of the most prominent legal frameworks on which US sanctions against Damascus were based over the past two decades.
The law included a set of punitive measures, including restrictions on US exports to Syria, especially dual-use civilian and military materials, restrictions on US companies wishing to operate inside the country, and the freezing of Syrian assets in the United States.
It also gave the US administration powers to downgrade diplomatic relations and impose restrictions on the movement of Syrian diplomats inside the United States.
Although large parts of these measures were later suspended or bypassed through presidential exemptions and special licenses, the law itself remained in force from a legislative standpoint.
The 2012 Law and Sanctions Linked to Human Rights Violations
The Syria Human Rights Accountability Act of 2012 came amid the escalation of popular protests in Syria and the accompanying repression, arrests, and widespread violations.
The law gave the US president additional powers to impose sanctions on Syrian officials accused of involvement in human rights violations. It also targeted entities and companies that provide surveillance and spying systems to Syrian authorities.
It also included measures restricting dealings with the Central Bank of Syria and imposing restrictions on Syria’s oil sector and related revenues, with the aim of limiting the financial resources used by the authorities at the time.
In return, the law included provisions supporting Syrian civil society, opposition institutions, and independent media, according to what Ghanem explained in his previous post.
What Would Repeal Mean?
Rights advocate Mohammed Abdul Rahman told Enab Baladi that, according to the proposal presented by the head of political affairs at the Syrian American Council, repealing the two laws does not mean lifting restrictions on individuals or entities involved in previous violations or crimes. Rather, it means removing the legislative basis for sanctions that had been imposed on the Syrian state and its institutions during the rule of the Assad regime.
Abdul Rahman believes full repeal could open the way to expanding economic, trade, and investment relations with Syria, and could give international companies and institutions greater legal guarantees to deal with the Syrian market without fears that sanctions linked to the two laws will return.
However, Abdul Rahman stressed that the bill is still at the beginning of its legislative path. It must first pass the Foreign Relations Committee, then go through debate and voting stages in both the Senate and the House of Representatives before it becomes finally effective.
These developments come within a series of US measures taken over the past two years to ease restrictions imposed on Syria after the political transformations the country witnessed. Syrians, according to rights advocate Mohammed Abdul Rahman, are waiting to see whether Congress will move toward the full repeal of the two laws, which for decades formed one of the main pillars of US sanctions policy toward Damascus.
