Grief must be considered as a right, which cannot be reduced to an individual matter. Families and individuals should not face alone the demise of their loved ones. The impact of these deaths needs to be shared and processed collectively. Joint document with Memoria Abierta.
During the pandemic, the sharp increase in state surveillance in Argentina has been marked by a lack of transparency regarding the methods used or the destination of the information collected. This opens the door to human rights violations in terms of freedom of expression, right to assembly and to privacy.
For the travesti* and trans community, the implementation of COVID-19 prevention measures is often synonymous of further restriction to their already precarious access to housing, food, health and work. Public health policies for members of this community must be inclusive and integrated, and the State must actively repair years of violations to their rights. This is a joint statement with the Bachillerato Popular Travesti-Trans Mocha Celis (the Mocha Celis Travesti-Trans High School).
Argentina is ordered to cede an undivided deed to 4000 km2 of ancestral territory to the Lhaka Honhat Association of Aboriginal Communities, among other reparations.
For the past 40 years, Ramona has been fighting ongoing harassment by the agricultural industry to keep the land on which she was born. We went on site to meet with our colleagues of Movimiento Campesino de Córbdoba and presented an amicus curiae brief to the local Court.
Vanessa’s deportation is proof of the inherent threats involved in Argentina’s immigration policy as modified by presidential decree. The decision to revert her expulsion is a step forward towards the restauration of children’s rights.
The Committee of the Convention on Migrant Workers (CMW) determined that the decree breaches international treaty ratified by Argentina in 2007.
The US Justice Department’s charges are an attack on basic journalistic activities. Whistleblowers who provide information of public interest require protection.
A group of organizations submitted information to the IACHR on the migration policies of the provincial governments of Jujuy and Chubut. We also provided details regarding a series of expulsions of migrants.
The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas promotes measures to guarantee access to land, the protection of seeds in light of their commodification and a stop to evictions, among many other issues.
More than 160 UN member countries endorsed the Global Compact for Migration at an intergovernmental conference held on December 10-11. This agreement includes some important advances, above all in a context of growing xenophobia and nationalism in Latin America and the world.
When victims of human rights violations or their relatives seek justice, it is fundamental that they have psychological support. Organizations from the region that do such psycholegal work met in Buenos Aires to exchange strategies.
Argentina’s food and drug regulator authorized the sale of misoprostol in pharmacies under a special prescription mechanism. This is a hugely important move for the health of women and persons with the capacity to gestate.
This document compiles the information sent to the UN committee evaluating Argentina’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In a context of economic crisis, fiscal adjustment and preexisting structural limitations, the outlook is worrisome.
Thirty-five organizations published an open letter demanding that the Argentine state and Neuquén province fulfill the commitment they made to Ivana Rosales before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her daughter continues to demand justice, a year after Ivana’s death.
The Senate voted to sustain the clandestine nature of abortion in Argentina, after months of massive social mobilizations.
We call on senators to vote in favor of rights and against clandestine conditions, criminalization and death.
The new Global Compact represents a turning point in the international management of migration. But much work remains to ensure that its implementation is focused on the protection of the rights of migrants.
During the final round of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, 40 organizations urged UN member states to ensure that the accord fully incorporate a rights-based approach. The last draft includes changes that reinforce a focus on control and security. If this is validated, countries will have wasted a historic opportunity to fuel a paradigm shift.
Argentina must review legislation that is discriminatory, such as the criminalization of abortion and the lack of access to health care for women who decide to interrupt their pregnancies. The IACHR also put itself at the disposition of states in the region to assist with establishing a clear separation between the secular state and religious beliefs.
After the lower house passed a bill to legalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy through week fourteen, 129 votes to 125, we call on senators to vote in favor of human rights and of ending clandestine abortions in Argentina.
The green scarf of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion became part of the uniform of high school students. Teenage girls formed gender committees within student councils and are coordinating efforts to fight for their rights.
CELS participated in the last hearing in Congress on legal abortion. Edurne Cárdenas spoke there about the need to guarantee access to this right.
At the fourth of six rounds of negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration, state delegations from various regions defended the importance of addressing regularization procedures.
The latest draft of the Global Compact for Migration avoids mentioning the regularization of those who are already living in their destination country, which is a serious omission. Opinion piece by Camila Barretto Maia, Diego Morales y Raísa Ortiz Cetra.
As demonstrations against public service rate hikes and the influence of international creditors take place in Argentina, this hearing before the IACHR made clear that fiscal policy cannot be addressed without taking human rights into account.
The International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO) submitted its reflections on the challenges posed by privacy in the digital age to the UN Human Rights Committee.
CELS’ Executive Director addressed the plenary meeting of the congressional committees that must examine eight bills on the voluntary interruption of pregnancy. He spoke in support of the bill backed by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion.
The judges determined that the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) adopted by the national government to modify the country’s Migration Law is unconstitutional because it does not comply with the requirements for this kind of decree and because the changes go against migrants’ rights.
The UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing presented a report on housing strategies that promote socioeconomic equality and inclusion. It mentions examples from numerous countries, including Argentina.
UN member states began negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration. This agreement represents an unprecedented opportunity to establish specific obligations for protecting the human rights of migrant persons, but the process faces numerous challenges. Opinion piece by Camila Barretto Maia, Diego Morales and Raísa Ortiz Cetra.
At the UN, States will begin negotiating the Global Compact on migration. CELS and five other organizations present concrete measures that the Compact should include to guarantee migrants’ rights.
Today marks one year since the national government modified via emergency decree the country’s Migration Law, a product of years of collective struggle for democratic migration legislation. The result is a policy of selectivity that puts people under permanent suspicion.
In the coming months, UN member states will negotiate the Global Compact on migration. CELS and five other organizations present concrete measures that the Compact should include to guarantee migrants’ rights.
The Argentine Supreme Court ruling against religious education in Salta province’s public schools during school hours expands the development and scope of antidiscrimination law in Argentina. The decision confirms that the state must adopt a neutral stance with respect to the plurality of groups that coexist in democracy.
What information was gathered to decide which activists and organizations should be kept from participating in the WTO Ministerial Conference, and how was it collected? We present a set of habeas data petitions and a request for access to information.
The laws permitting religious education in the public schools of Salta province violate human rights and Argentina’s constitution. CELS and five other members of the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO), acting as friends of the court, made a presentation today before the Argentine Supreme Court. A joint press release follows.
The laws and regulations that permit religious education in Salta province’s public schools violate the freedom of worship and conscience as well as other rights. We presented an amicus curiae along with other organizations belonging to INCLO.
The Global Compact on migration could be an unprecedented intergovernmental tool but the majority of states have expressed an interest in intensifying the current model, centered on controls and security, instead of transforming it.
In 2016, more than 5,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean. Many were attempting to reach the southern border of Spain, where deaths, disappearances and people wandering in search of their family members are a daily scene. Carlos Arce Jiménez, in Argentina under an agreement between the University of Córdoba (Spain), the University of Lanús’s Institute of Justice and Human Rights and CELS, talked to us about the responsibility of migration and border policies in this crisis.
The National Consensus for Decent Habitat proposes a broad and critical debate and the implementation of ten policies and strategies aimed at guaranteeing the right to adequate urban and rural habitat in Argentina.
An appeals court in Buenos Aires ratified, on human rights grounds, a previous judicial order that benefits residents of the Garrote neighborhood.
The Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) on migrants associates migration with crime, basing its assessment on partial, decontextualized data. This promotes xenophobia and stigmatizes migrants.
Seven million people rent in Argentina. A normative framework for rent regulation and public policies that impact supply and guarantee the right to proper housing are necessary. Renters are often exposed to abusive practices by the real estate market and families are pushed toward informal rental markets and overcrowding.
More than 150 organizations requested an urgent meeting with Argentine Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña, in order to propose to him that any modification to the Migrations Law must be debated in the multiple spaces that exist for this purpose, from working groups all the way to Congress.
The draft Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) that we gained access to changes the paradigm of the current law and is a setback for migrant rights.
The Court issued a follow-up ruling to its 2008 decision that reaffirmed the need to mend the environment and prevent future damage.
Joint statement by the Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ), the Asociación por los Derechos en Salud Mental (ADESAM) and CELS.
UN member countries are discussing a New Urban Agenda, which aims to set international standards for reducing the number of households without housing and achieving sustainable urban development over the next 20 years.
This publication sets forth ten arguments for legalizing early abortion in Argentina and other countries. The material can be downloaded in Spanish and in English.