With most avenues to pursue justice for Syrian victims of international crimes blocked, Syrian and international justice actors within civil society and formal institutions are active in exploring ways to seek some form of justice and accountability. In doing so, many of them use the language of transitional justice as the most promising paradigm to keep justice on the international agenda and to resist the prevailing defeatism about the possibility to advance justice in the absence of a transition, as well as to remedy the marginalization of victims’ experiences and narratives. Many of these actors are not only interested in criminal accountability. They also seek to stretch the boundaries of what is imaginable in terms of justice, beyond existing mechanisms and even beyond the judicial realm. They are striving to open up the justice imagination. In a maximalist sense, they are foraging for more ambitious justice narratives that can accommodate the victims’ lived experiences. In a minimalist sense, they are resisting the erasure or invisibilization of the experiences of millions of Syrians affected by hackneyed justice narratives. This article refers to the work of these justice actors to expose and conceptualize some of the shortcomings of mainstream transitional justice discourses.

中文翻译：

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激发正义想象：反对叙利亚受害者正义叙事的隐蔽和抹杀

由于大多数为国际罪行的叙利亚受害者伸张正义的途径受阻，民间社会和正式机构中的叙利亚和国际司法行为者正在积极探索寻求某种形式的正义和问责的方法。在这样做的过程中，他们中的许多人使用过渡时期司法的语言作为最有希望的范式，以将司法保留在国际议程上，并抵制盛行的关于在没有过渡的情况下推进司法的可能性的失败主义，以及补救将受害者的经历和叙述边缘化。其中许多参与者不仅对刑事责任感兴趣。他们还试图将可以想象的司法界限延伸到现有机制甚至司法领域之外。他们正在努力开启正义的想象。从最极端的意义上说，他们正在寻找更雄心勃勃的正义叙事，以适应受害者的生活经历。从极简主义的角度来看，他们正在抵制抹杀或隐匿数百万受陈腐正义叙事影响的叙利亚人的经历。本文参考了这些司法行为者的工作，以揭露和概念化主流过渡司法话语的一些缺陷。