The Reckoning Project Lawyer Ibrahim Olabi Appointed Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN

Ibrahim Olabi, Chief Legal Adviser of the Ukrainian-international initiative The Reckoning Project, has been appointed as Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. The appointment was formalized by Presidential Decree No. 142 of 2025.

Olabi, a British-Syrian lawyer, has worked for many years in the field of international law and human rights. As one of the leading voices in Syria’s legal and civic community, he has consistently defended the principles of accountability for crimes and the involvement of civil society in decision-making processes.

Within The Reckoning Project, he headed the legal team and shaped the project’s legal strategy.

Olabi originally trained as a British lawyer of Syrian descent with a focus on commercial law. However, as he has said himself, fate intervened. When the Syrian war broke out in 2011, he immediately shifted to criminal law and human rights defense to support Syrians. This conflict became the cause of his life for more than a decade, and he rarely diverted attention to other wars in his legal work.

Ukraine was the only exception he made, after Russia’s full-scale invasion. “What Russia is trying to do in Ukraine, it has already done in Syria,” Olabi has stated, pointing to what he sees as the Kremlin’s identical strategy in both wars.

Under his leadership, The Reckoning Project launched several landmark initiatives, including preparing Ukraine’s first torture case under the principle of universal jurisdiction before the Federal Court of Argentina.

This case, filed in April 2024, involved a Ukrainian citizen who survived torture in an occupied city and sought justice in Argentina with the support of The Reckoning Project’s team. More details on the Argentine submission can be found here.

After the fall of Syria’s dictatorial regime in December 2024, Olabi served as adviser to Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, while continuing to provide legal counsel to the project.

Olabi’s appointment to the United Nations underscores his significant contribution to the development of international justice and reflects the growing importance of the fight against impunity worldwide.

In August 2023, to mark the tenth anniversary of the chemical attacks in Ghouta, Olabi initiated a solidarity visit to Ukraine by leading Syrian civil society figures — representatives of the White Helmets, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Families for Freedom, Madaniya, The Syria Campaign, and others who have long documented war crimes and fought for justice. During the visit, they met Ukrainian officials, traveled to Bucha, and spoke with families of the missing as well as evacuated Mariupol medics. The event became a symbolic gesture of mutual support between Syrian and Ukrainian societies.

Public Interest Journalism Lab co-founded The Reckoning Project — an initiative of international and Ukrainian journalists, lawyers, and analysts documenting war crimes — in March 2022.

Listen to the podcast “When Everything Matters” featuring Ibrahim Olabi, where he talks about Russia’s “manual” of warfare, Syrians’ pursuit of justice, and how to make life harder for war criminals.