What does it mean for a French court to uphold an arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad?

“It is the first time that a national court has recognized that a head of state does not enjoy full personal immunity,” said lawyers Clemens Bechtart, Jane Sulzer and Clemens.

France is among the countries that allow cases of crimes against humanity to be brought in its courts.

Syria has been devastated by a civil war that broke out after Assad’s government responded with deadly force to peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.

The conflict has killed half a million people and caused half the population to flee their homes, including nearly six million refugees abroad.

In August 2013, a chemical weapons attack occurred in the Ghouta area on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, which was controlled by the opposition at the time.

UN experts confirmed the use of missiles containing the nerve agent sarin, but were not asked to assign any responsibility.

Sarin, like other nerve agents, interferes with the enzyme that prevents muscles from contracting, and when the enzyme stops or does not work properly, the muscles are constantly stimulated. If the muscles are constantly contracting, people may not be able to breathe.

Western powers said that only Syrian government forces could carry out the attacks. Al-Assad denied the allegations and blamed opposition fighters.

The President subsequently ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to destroy Syria’s declared chemical arsenal. But investigators from the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have blamed the Syrian army for a number of deadly chemical attacks that have occurred since then.

Three years ago, survivors and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression filed a complaint with French investigative judges in Paris over the 2013 attack. They claimed that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed, and that the French court could therefore try individuals under the legal concept of universal jurisdiction.

Last November, judges approved and issued arrest warrants for Assad, his brother Maher, who commands the Syrian army’s 4th Armored Division, Major General Ghassan Abbas, director of the Scientific Studies and Research Center, and Major General Bassam al-Hassan, an adviser to the president and liaison officer to the South Sudan Commission.

The appeal by anti-terrorism prosecutors did not question the evidence, but sought to have the arrest warrant for the Syrian president quashed. They argued that the immunity enjoyed by foreign heads of state in office should only be lifted by international courts such as the International Criminal Court.

The Paris Court of Appeal said on Wednesday that it had confirmed the validity of the arrest warrant. According to a statement issued, “The prohibition of the use of chemical weapons is part of customary international law as a mandatory rule, and international crimes considered by judges cannot be considered part of the official duties of the head of state, and therefore they can be separated from the sovereignty related to the nature of these duties.”

Although Assad is unlikely to face trial in France, the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, Mazen Darwish, said it represented a “decisive step towards justice for the victims of chemical attacks.”

He added that the decision sends a clear message that “impunity for serious crimes will not be tolerated, and that the era in which immunity served as a shield for impunity is over.”

It is noteworthy that Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute – the treaty that established the International Criminal Court – and does not recognize its jurisdiction.