The right to care: A new social question before the Argentine Courts of Justice?

Abstract

In recent decades, the potential role of judicial activism in the transformation of certain social structures through the use of the law has been explored in a number of countries. In Argentina, the inclusion of principal human rights treaties to the National Constitution has encouraged that process as well as the promotion of social and economic rights. This article seeks to identify the conditions which enable the politicization of rights and to explain why these legal strategies have been seldom used with respect to certain rights, such as the right to care. Considering a pioneering case in the Argentine courts regarding some aspects of the right to care of children over 45 days of age, the article will explore the role that social actors may play through the use of legal strategies to channel demands for the right to care.