Hassan Ammar/AP/Press Association. All rights reserved.In a joint press conference on 24 March, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, jointly agreed on an approach for ending the conflict in Syria, including “a target schedule for establishing a framework for a political transition and also a draft constitution” by August 2016.
This comes after the December 2015 UN Security Council Resolution endorsing the road map for the peace process in Syria, and setting a timetable for talks. Resolution 2254 already set optimistic targets including a six-month political process to arrive at an agreement on both governance arrangements and a process for drafting a new constitution – while also acknowledging “the close linkage between a ceasefire and a parallel political process”. Kerry and Lavrov’s call for a draft constitution by August seems to accelerate this already problematic and challenging timetable and raises alarm in light of recent constitutional transitions.
The American and Russian leaders are right to recognise that a new constitutional settlement will be critical to ensuring a sustainable end to conflict in Syria. At the same time, this agreement reflects a lack of attention to the context on the ground – where the ceasefire agreement is yet to stick – and it seems to neglect the importance of the process leading to the final constitution. This process is as important as the constitutional text itself.
