FEDERALISM AND SUBNATIONAL FEMINIST LEGAL MOBILIZATION IN A

HIGHLY UNEQUAL FEDERATION: THE CASE OF SALTA, ARGENTINA

Alba M. Ruibal (CONICET- UNC, Argentina)

Prepared to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association,
June 2 - 5, 2016, New Orleans

ABSTRACT

This paper draws from a qualitative study of feminist litigation strategies in the province of
Salta, Argentina, to put forward an argument about the impact of federalism on subnational
legal mobilization in a highly unequal federal democracy. The case of Salta is an apparently
unlikely setting for the development of successful feminist strategic litigation: it is one of
the most conservative political and legal enclaves in the country, including its judicial
system, and the local feminist movement counts on scarce material resources for legal
mobilization. However, during the past decade feminist legal strategies in this province
have generated some of the most innovative and relevant cases of feminist legal
mobilization in contemporary Argentina. The study argues that in order to account for a
case like Salta, it is necessary to consider the impact of federalism on legal mobilization,
and in particular how federalism interacts with components of two of the most important
variables from legal mobilization studies: support structures and legal opportunities. Its
main thesis is that federalism institutional arrangements strengthen the ability of local legal
activists to pursue litigation strategies, in the absence of strong local support structures and
in unfavorable or uncertain legal opportunities, and that it does so in two main ways: by
fostering the institutional autonomy of governmental agencies and insider activists working
for the defense of rights at the local level and by providing external legal resources and
support for local legal activists in civil society. Throughout the analysis, the article
combines two research agendas that have not yet been put together to explain feminist legal
strategies in federal systems: legal mobilization studies and gender and federalism
scholarship. By addressing a non-typical case, in a highly uneven federation, the article
points out nuances to some of the main propositions of both strands of research.

1
INTRODUCTION

Feminist legal advocates in the province of Salta have developed some of the most
important strategic litigation cases for womens rights in contemporary Argentina,
addressing gender discrimination at the workplace and religious education at public
schools. Their legal claims have motivated innovative judicial decisions at the local level,
as well as the first case of strategic litigation for womens rights to reach and be upheld by
the national Supreme Court, in 2014. Most notably, womens rights advocates in Salta have
been able to make judicial gains without counting on a strong organizational infrastructure
or material resources to sustain litigation, and they have done so in a highly traditionalist
enclave, with a local judicial power marked by a widespread influence of Catholicism as
well as by the presence of a majority of conservative judges at the highest provincial court.
In other words, we cannot make sense of the development of womens legal mobilization in
this case by a straightforward reference to a typically favorable support structure for legal
mobilization or a clearly open legal opportunity structure for feminist legal claims.

This study poses the question of how can movements effectively mobilize the law in a
conservative political and legal subnational environment, and without counting on a strong
local support structure for legal mobilization. In this regards, it follows the lead of recent
works that have analyzed legal mobilization processes in unlikely cases, or in what they
have termed as inhospitable settings or constrained conditions for the use of law by social
actors (Vanhala 2012; Lemaitre and Sandvik 2015).1 The study argues that in order to
account for a case like Salta, we should consider the impact of federalism on subnational
legal strategies, and in particular how federalism interacts with two of the most important
variables from legal mobilization studies: support structures and legal opportunities.
Drawing on a case of subnational legal mobilization under non-conventional conditions
allows this study to tease out some of the particular mechanisms of federalisms influence
on legal mobilization dynamics at the local level. The papers main thesis is that
federalisms institutional arrangements strengthens the ability of local feminist legal
activists to pursue litigation strategies, in the absence of strong local support structures and
in unfavorable or uncertain legal opportunities, and that it does so in two main ways: by
fostering the institutional autonomy of governmental agencies and insider activists working
for the defense of rights at the local level, and by providing external legal resources and
support for local legal activists in civil society.

In order to develop this argument, the paper connects two research agendas that have not
yet been put together to explain feminist legal mobilization at the subnational level in
federal systems: legal mobilization studies and gender and federalism scholarship, which is
one of the most important contemporary strands of research on feminist politics. The paper
argues that the literature on gender and federalism complements legal mobilization studies
in explaining subnational feminist legal strategies in federal regimes, particularly in the
context of highly unequal federal democracies. On the other hand, the analysis of a case

1
These important works have highlighted the dynamics of legal mobilization under
constrained conditions, due to unfavorable legal opportunities (Vanhala 2012) or political
violence (Lemaitre and Sandvik 2015).
2
like Salta, allows us to discuss nuances regarding the main propositions of both strands of
research, contributing in turn to expand their field of application to non-typical settings.2

The influence of federalism on feminist legal mobilization is understudied in general, and

in Latin America in particular. On the one hand, the gender and federalism scholarship has
produced a notable body of theoretical and empirical work about the impact of state
architecture on how women organize, as well as on the variation in the implementation of
gender policies across subnational units (see, for example, Chappell 2000; Sawer and
Vickers 2010; Franceschet and Piscopo 2013). However, this field of research has generally
focused on political and administrative institutions, and it has not paid enough attention to
judicial institutions and womens legal strategies. On the other hand, the burgeoning field
of studies on law and courts in Latin America has not paid sufficient attention to legal
mobilization processes and the interaction between social movements and legal institutions
at the subnational level. Given the importance of the recent creation or empowerment of
constitutional courts across the region (see Navia and Figueroa 2005), most of the literature
on law and social change in Latin America has generally focused on the national level (see,
in particular, the volumes edited by Gargarella, Domingo Villegas and Roux 2006; Gauri
and Brinks 2008; Couso, Huneeus and Sieder 2010). Furthermore, studies on subnational
judicial politics, which are still scarce in the region, are generally court-centered, focusing
on judicial independence and the empowerment of local courts (Beer 2006; Bill-Chvez
2003; Ingram 2013). But legal mobilization processes at the subnational level, including the
field of womens rights, have received almost no attention in the academic literature on law
and courts in Latin America, with notable exceptions (Smulovitz 2005, 2012; see also
Kohen 2009).

The case-study is presented through an analytical narrative, following process-tracing

methods, and drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with social movement
activists, feminist lawyers and academics in the city of Salta in 2013, as well as in other
Latin American locations between 2010 and 2014. The study also draws on the relevant
case law as well as on secondary sources regarding that jurisprudence, and in news articles
from local and national newspapers. The papers first section lays out the analytical
approach, with a focus on how conceptualizations and insights from gender and federalism
scholarship complement the analysis of legal opportunities and support structures, for the
study of subnational legal mobilization processes in highly unequal federations. The second
section analyses the impact of federalism and its interaction with those variables in the
Salta case-study, and addresses the process of legal mobilization in two salient feminist
strategic litigation cases in the province. The concluding section discusses the papers main
findings and their implications for the analysis of feminist legal mobilization at the
subnational level in other highly unequal federal democracies, particularly in the Latin
American context.

2
As argued by Lemaitre and Sandvik the bulk of the literature on law and social
movements has been developed to account for legal processes and institutions in
industrialized democracies (2015: 68).
3
I. FEDERALISMS IMPACT ON SUBNATIONAL FEMINIST LEGAL
MOBILIZATION

Legal mobilization studies generally argue that significant litigation strategies take place
either when there is a favorable legal opportunity -that is, when the rules related to legal
standing and the cost of the judicial process are accessible, as well as when courts are
receptive to social movement legal claims (Hilson 2002; Pedriana 2004; Andersen 2005;
Wilson and Cordero 2006; Meyer and Boutcher 2007; Vanhala 2011; De Fazio 2012;
Doherty and Hayes 2012)-, or when movements count on a strong support structure for
legal mobilization, comprising the presence of public interest lawyers, rights advocacy
organizations, and the availability of financing sources to sustain litigation (Epp 1998: 18).
In fact, both in legal mobilization studies and social movement scholarship, the
development of successful legal strategies is usually associated with the professionalization
and institutionalization of the movement (Epp 1998; Meyer and Staggenborg, 1996), with
professionalization being characterized by the presence of organizations with paid activists,
professional leadership and institutionalized organizational practices (Staggenborg (1988:
598-599).

So, a subnational case in which the feminist movement does not count on strong
organizational resources to sustain litigation and faces a conservative legal environment
would be apparently an unlikely setting for the development of important feminist litigation
strategies. However, as the proceeding case-study shows, even in a conservative
subnational political and legal enclave, and without relying on strong organizational
resources, feminist legal advocates may still mobilize the law in effective ways. By looking
at the impact of federalism on feminist legal mobilization we can make sense of feminist
litigation strategies developed at the subnational level in such adverse conditions. We argue
that the infrastructure of federalism has an influence on institutional factors that may
sustain legal mobilization in subnational units where there are not strong support structures
and the local legal opportunity is apparently closed for womens rights claims. To analyze
the impact of the federal organization of the state on legal and social dynamics related to
legal mobilization processes, we examine how federalism interacts with components the
two main variables from legal mobilization studies: legal opportunities and support
structures. In this analysis, we combine the legal mobilization scholarship with the strand of
feminist political studies known as gender and federalism.

The gender and federalism literature offers key insights for the analysis of womens rights
and mobilization in federal regimes. By placing attention on the gendered effects of state
architecture, this scholarship contributes to understand the impact of federalism on gender
politics and policies. Existing studies in this field have generally not analyzed litigation
strategies and the interaction between women and the judicial system. Instead, they have
privileged the analysis of political and administrative institutions, focusing in particular on
explaining the uneven enforcement of womens rights and gender policies across
subnational jurisdictions. In this regards, they have argued that some districts fare better in
womens rights protection than others due to political factors related to the federal character
of the state, (Chappell 2000; Sawer and Vickers 2010; Franceschet and Piscopo 2013).
Most relevantly for the present study, they have also shown how federalism impacts
womens mobilization, by providing more institutional sites for venue shopping and forum
4
shopping in the pursuit of gender equality reforms (Sawer and Vickers 2010; Vickers,
Haussmann and Sawer 2010; Chappell and Costello 2011; Chappell and Curtin 2012).
Although it has not focused on legal mobilization processes, the theoretical and empirical
contributions of this scholarship, when combined with legal mobilization studies, provide
fundamental analytical elements to understand the mechanisms through which federalism
affects feminist litigation strategies at the subnational level.

On the other hand, when confronted with a non-typical and apparently unlikely case of
subnational legal mobilization, particularly in the context of a highly unequal federation,
the conceptualizations and insights from both strands of investigation are challenged and
need to be nuanced in order to be analytically useful to account for the specificities of these
cases. In fact, nations in which federalism combines with huge regional economic
disparities and social inequality also present great regional disparities in terms of social
actors resources to pursue litigation strategies. For example, in federal countries in Latin
America, the region with the highest inequality in income distribution in the world, there
exists a huge gap between metropolis and other cities in terms of access to material
resources for legal activists. A high disparity in resource availability across subnational
units produces a different influence of federalism on movements strategies than that
predicted by the theory, for example with regards to processes of venue shopping and
forum shopping.

Within this framework, our main hypothesis is that the institutional architecture of the state
under federalism can strengthen the capacities of local feminist legal activists to pursue
litigation strategies, in the absence of strong local support structures and in unfavorable or
uncertain legal opportunities, particularly in the context of highly unequal federations, and
that it does so in two principal ways: on the one hand, federal agencies and institutions
located at the subnational level enjoy institutional autonomy from local political powers,
which confers a degree of independence to movement allies and institutional activists
within those institutions to support legal mobilization processes at the subnational level. On
the other hand, the federal organization of the judiciary generates incentives for national-
level rights advocacy organization to support subnational legal strategies, and in this way it
strengthens the legal resources of local legal activists to carry out strategic litigation.

*Federalism and the autonomy of institutional activists at the local level

The literature on state feminism as well as social movement scholarship have called
attention to the fundamental role played by institutional activists (McGuire and Santoro
1997: 504) or insider activists (Banaszak 2010: 30) within the states structure in effecting
and implementing gender equality reforms. These type of actors, who are located in an
intersection between movement and the state, are different from movements elite allies, in
that in certain cases they may behave differently -generally more positively or consistently-
regarding movements goals (Banaszak 2010: 6-7). This perspective blurs the frontiers
assumed by traditional political opportunity approaches in social movement research,
which suppose that movement activists and elite actors are different entities; that
movements and the state are separate or antithetical spheres; and that movement action is
extra-institutional. Although the literature on institutional activism has focused on state
bureaucracies and has not analyzed the role of insider activist in legal mobilization
5
processes, we can apply its basic conception to the legal field, and understand the position
of this type of actors as located in the interface between legal opportunities and support
structures for legal mobilization.

This type of actors can have a strong impact particularly in conservative subnational
enclaves, in the context of highly unequal federations. In order to be effective, particularly
in those enclaves, these actors must enjoy a degree of autonomy vis--vis local political
authorities. Institutional autonomy allows institutional activists to pursue rights advocacy
actions without fear from retaliation by local authorities, when their actions may contradict
the preferences of subnational elites.

But, how can these actors come to occupy those positions in the first place, and in turn
develop their work in an autonomous way, precisely in the context of conservative local
politics and legal opportunities? The institutional architecture of federalism, with the
presence of federal agencies at the subnational level is an important way in which this can
take place. Federalisms infrastructure allows for movement allies and institutional activist
to occupy positions within the state structure at the local level and to defend the rights of
oppressed groups even if in doing so they oppose local authorities.

Federalism and the resources of local legal activists

The literature on gender and federalism (Sawer and Vickers 2010; Chappell and Costello
2011; Chappell and Curtin 2012), as well as studies on law and social movements (Siegel
2006: 1350; Nejaime 2013: 25) point out that federalism, with its constitutional division of
power among different levels of government, offers activist more institutional sites for
contestation, through so-called venue shopping and forum shopping. According to both
strands of research, activists do so in search of friendlier government sites. In particular the
gender and federalism literature has explained that federations permit feminist activists to
play a two-level game in search of a supportive government level when progress is blocked
at another (Sawer 1990; Chappell 151-153; Chappell and Curtin 2012: 28).

The conceptualizations of multiple points of access, forum shopping and two-level games
are key to understanding the impact of federalism on subnational legal mobilization
dynamics in federal systems. However, the mechanisms of this influence are rather
different in highly unequal federations from what is expected from the theory. In the first
place, the idea that activists will search for more amicable institutional assumes a certain
degree of equality in terms of resource availability for rights advocacy organizations to
choose among different jurisdictional levels. But at least in highly unequal federations the
advantage of forum shopping given by federal systems is available for big NGOs playing at
the national level, which have the resources to choose where to invest their resources across
different jurisdictions. It is not at disposal of local organizations or activists, who usually
work within their oftentimes inhospitable jurisdiction, and most frequently in unfavorable
conditions in terms of financial and organizational support. So, this form of explaining the
effect of federalism on activists strategies does not offer a complete account of processes
of legal mobilization carried out by local activists at the subnational level in highly unequal
federations. Still, federalism can affect local actors possibilities to pursue legal

6
mobilization and influence legal change, through a related though different mechanism: it
can promote the interaction of local legal activists with their peers working at the national
level, and in this way it can strengthen the resources of local activists to pursue their legal
strategies at the subnational level.

Secondly, the idea that activists will play a two-level game in search for more amicable
institutional sites is not always true. Legal activists with organizational capacity for forum
shopping sometimes invest their resources in unfriendly jurisdictions. Judicial federalism,
particularly when the appellate system obliges to initiate rights claims at lower courts, may
lead national-level activists to support claims promoted by local actors in order to
nationalize issues and reach the supreme court.3 In these cases, no matter how closed
political and legal opportunities are at the local level, local activists may be able to gather
support by big national-level players, which can profit from choosing among different
jurisdictions, and not necessarily amicable ones. In this way, forum shopping by big NGOs
in federal systems may empower local actors working in local contexts where political and
legal opportunities are apparently more adverse for the advancement of rights in the pursuit
of their legal strategies.
National-level NGOs may choose to do so especially when two factors are present at the
subnational level: when local activists develop significant litigation strategies that may
potentially reach the countrys highest court, and when local activists count on social
capital with relevant actors in other jurisdictions, which allows for their legal strategies to
be known and supported. The legal training and expertise of local movement members can
allow them to initiate important litigation strategies at the subnational level, and it can be
considered as a sign of the professionalization of the movement, although it is not usually
included in the literatures definition of this dimension. In turn, their social capital-i.e. the
formal and informal linkages and networks of the movements organizations with other
relevant individuals and groups (Diani 1997) can facilitate their interaction with legal actors
from other jurisdictions. Social capital is, in fact, an intangible but nonetheless influential
resource for legal mobilization, which could be considered as part of the support structure,
but is not included in that concept. These factors can be a fundamental in the absence of
external financing and infrastructural capacity of the movement, and are part of the
explanation of the effects of federalism on subnational legal mobilization.

3
By nationalizing issues through constitutional litigation and appealing to the
countrys Supreme Court, the feminist movement in other contexts has tried to
circumvent the negative effects of federalism on womens mobilization and rights, and in
particular the need to carry out multiple local campaigns (Vickers 2010: 417).
7
II. EXPLAINING THE INFLUENCE OF FEDERALISM ON LEGAL
MOBILIZATION IN THE SALTA CASE

Salta: Un unlikely setting for effective feminist legal mobilization?

Salta is one of the most traditionalist Argentine provinces, with a conservative social
structure and very low social mobility, located in one of the most relegated and poorest
regions the country (the so-called NOA, or Argentine North-West).4 It is a paradigmatic
case of influence of conservative religious forces on the State at the subnational level in
Argentina, being one of the two jurisdictions, together with Catamarca, that grants the
highest formal privileges to the Catholic Church in the country, through constitutional
provisions (Esquivel 2009). It is also a province where informal rules and cultural
understandings have historically fostered the capacity of the Catholic Church to influence
public policies.5 In recent times, during the governorship of Juan Manuel Urtubey (elected
in 2007, reelected in 2011 and 2015), the ultra-conservative Catholic group Opus Dei
gained ascendance on the states structure in the province, reinforcing the Churchs
historical influence on the state (Cceres, interview 2013; Gmez Augier, interview 2013).6
During the past decade, Salta has been systematically singled out by the national press as an
extreme case of religious influence on the provincial government, as well as of non-
compliance with national norms on reproductive rights and sexual education, which are
being implemented in the rest of the provinces.7 In this sense, this case confirms the
argument by gender and federalism scholars that federalism, with its delegation of policy
powers to subnational units, leads to the uneven protection of womens rights throughout
the national territory. In fact, extensive studies across subnational unites in Argentina have
shown the role of federalism on the disparate protection of womens rights in cases of
domestic violence (Smulovitz 2010) as well as on the uneven enforcement of national laws
on reproductive rights (Franceschet and Piscopo 2013) across the countrys subnational
entities.

Given these conditions, Salta would be a most likely case in which to observe womens
rights advocates resorting to the judicial system in search for remedy, as we can expect that
4
The index of poverty in Salta reached 43.6 percent in 2009 (Puga and Otero 2010).
5
Interviewees for this study pointed out that significant social sectors in Salta are
proud of the Provinces colonial past, and are considered as the last bastions of Hispanic
conservatism in the country (Cceres, interview 2013), and that in this province there
exists a superposition between culture and religion and a widespread assumption that
Catholicism is part of the cultural matrix (Gmez Augier, interview 2013).
6
Urtubey appointed Opus Dei members at key positions within the state with
regards to the rights of women and vulnerable groups, such as the Minister of Education
and the office of the Public Defender of Minors.
7
Saltas government rejects the National Ministry of Education policy on
comprehensive sexual education and under Urtubeys government educative materials on
this topic, delivered by the national Ministry of Education, were returned without being
used (Gmez Augier, interview 2013). Further examples of the influence of religious
influence on public institutions and policies can be found at: Mariana Carbajal, El
fundamentalismo religioso contraataca, Pgina 12, 26 de marzo de 2013.
8
when the political process is blocked for the advancement of womens rights, activists will
seek redress through judicial institutions. Two key feminist legal activists in Salta feminist
advocates confirm this, explaining that they started developing strategic litigation because
they perceived that political institutions were closed for the advancement of womens
rights. One of them expressed that in another context she would not have thought of
searching for social changes through this venue, but given that the political powers do not
respect minority rights, the only possible way to claim for the enforcement of rights is
through a contra-majoritarian organ such as the judiciary (Abbut Carol, interview 2013). In
a similar vein, litigant lawyer Gabriela Gaspar explained that feminist actors in Salta try,
first, to exert influence on the legislative, and they try to mobilize public opinion and public
debate, but when that venue does not work, they pursue their claims through the judiciary
(Gaspar, interview 2013).

However, beyond the motivations that may lead activists to pursue litigation strategies, the
focus of this study is not on the conditions that prompted the movement to use the law (as
in Vanhalas 2015 paper), but on how it succeeded in doing so, that is on the factors that
have fostered their capacities to advance their legal claims through courts and to influence
legal change. In this sense, while it can be expected that feminist activists will seek redress
through the judiciary when local conservative politicians block womens rights laws or act
counter to federal norms in this field, the literature also predicts that social actors and
individuals will pursue significant litigation strategies when relying on a strong support
structure for legal mobilization, or when the legal opportunity, comprising the receptivity of
courts, is favorable for the advancement of their cause. In this regards, Salta is prima face
an improbable case for the development of successful strategic litigation. In the first place,
the local legal opportunity has been marked by a pervasive influence of Catholicism on the
judicial power, as well as by a majority of conservative judges at the provinces highest
court, the Superior Tribunal de Justicia.8 According to interviewees for this study, there is
a marked and direct influence of the Catholic Church on Saltas judiciary in general. This is
evidenced, for example, by the activities of the so-called Pastoral Judicial, the masses
carried out each month for members of the judiciary, and the presence of religious symbols
in public buildings of the judicial power (Gaspar, interview 2013).9

8
In Argentina, each of the 23 provinces as well as the Autonomous City of Buenos
Aires has its own Constitution, which organizes the three branches of government at the
provincial level; each subnational entity (except from the City of Buenos Aires) has an
independent judicial power, with a high court (called either supreme court or superior
tribunal).Saltas Superior Tribunal is composed of seven judges, appointed by the
Governor with Senate approval, for a six-year period
9
The Pastoral Judicial is an institutionalized action by Saltas Catholic Church,
through a Commission formed by members of the Judicial Power and the Public Ministry
as well as a priest (Bertha Lozano, El Poder Judicial y la Iglesia, El revs de la trama,
October 20 2011, available at: http://www.elrevesdelatrama.com/2011/10/el-poder-judicial-
y-la-iglesia.html). The Pastoral has been denounced as interfering on court sentences as
well as on the training of judicial employees (El fallo me dio vergenza ajena,
InformateSalta, October 28 2011, available at:
http://informatesalta.com.ar/noticia/55639/el-fallo-me-dio-verguenza-ajena).
9
Secondly, with regards to the organizational resources for legal mobilization, although
there is an active and diverse feminist movement in Salta,10 local feminist organizations and
legal activists for womens rights do not count on a strong support structure for legal
mobilization. Indeed, the lack of material resources and external financing for feminist
organizations obstacles the development of professionalized and institutionalized feminist
movement, as well as of a strong support structure for legal mobilization at the local level.
There exist obstacles for the development of an autonomous movement, given that in Salta
activists are usually affiliated to political parties (Caliva, interview 2013), they frequently
depend for their living on wages from public employments by the provincial or municipal
state, or subsidies from the local government, and there are no external or private financing
resources for the feminist movement in Salta (Abbut Carol, interview 2013). Furthermore,
most feminist organizations do not count on legal entity status, which in Argentina is
necessary to litigate in collective action cases, nor do they count on paid staff and an
organizational infrastructure.

So, Salta would seem indeed a least likely case for the development of some of the most
important strategic litigation cases for womens rights in Argentina. However, in this
context, local legal advocates have carried out some of the most salient cases of feminist
strategic litigation in the country, addressing equality at work and religious education at
public schools. Moreover, the process of feminist legal mobilization in Salta stands out in a
country where, despite the existence of a prominent feminist movement since the transition
to democracy (Feijoo and Gogna 1990) and an increasing use of courts by social actors
(Smulovitz 2005, 2012), strategic litigation is still a sub-utilized tool in the pursuit of
womens rights (Kohen 2009; Gherardi, Author interview 2010). The lack of resource by
the feminist movement to national courts is even more surprising given that the
constitutional reform of 1994 and the reform of the Supreme Court in 2003 expanded the
legal opportunity for social movements claims.11 So, what accounts for the notable process
10
The feminist movement in Salta is composed by two main networks: the Womens
Multisectoral organization (Multisectorial de Mujeres), founded in 2003, and the the
Womens Forum for Equal Opportunities (Foro de Mujeres por la Igualdad de
Oportunidades), created in 2004. Among the main achievements of the feminist movement
in Salta has been the promulgation of the provincial law on violence against women, which
had been vetoed in its entirely by then Governor Juan Carlos Romero. After Romeros veto,
it was necessary to achieve two thirds of the vote at that Chamber in order to reverse it, and
feminist mobilization made it possible (Morales, interview 2013; Ramos, interview 2013).
Furthermore, in 2013, feminists successfully resisted the declaration of Salta as a pro-life
city by Saltas City Council. The initiative had among its main provisions the cancellation
of all the protocols for the attention of non-punishable abortions, and the ban on the
distribution of emergency contraception pills.
11
The constitutional reform of 1994 widened the scope of amparo briefs, by conferring
legal standing to social organizations (provided that they can demonstrate that their
institutional aims are related to the issue at stakes) and by allowing for the use of these
remedies to defend rights that have a collective dimension (constitutional art. 43). In this
way, the reform set the institutional framework for collective proceedings, and broadened
the means for public interest litigation in Argentina. The reform of the Supreme Court
carried out in 2003 strengthened the Courts institutional independence and modified its
10
of feminist legal mobilization developed in Salta? The impact of federalism on subnational
legal strategies goes a long way in explaining this case. We examine first its influence in
fostering the role of autonomous institutions at the local level and secondly its impact on
the support structure for local legal activists.

Federalism and institutional activists within the state structure in Salta

The case of Salta highlights the importance of the presence of institutional activists and
movement allies within autonomous public institutions at the local level. In this case, three
such institutions were key for the development of feminist litigation strategies: the Office
of the Public Defender, the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenofovia and
Racism (INADI) in Salta, and the Womens Commission (Comisin de la Mujer) within
the National University of Salta (UNSA). The two latter ones are federal institutions
working at the local level, and their insertion within the federal and the local jurisdictions
confers them institutional independence from local authorities and a strong status for the
defense of womens rights within local politics.

In the first place, the local delegation of INADI, which was created in 2008, has been a key
actor in the development of the most important litigation cases pursued by womens rights
advocates in Salta. Since then and until 2013, the Delegate for INADI in Salta was
Vernica Spaventa, a young feminist lawyer, who is part of the feminist movement in Salta
and has contacts with feminist lawyers and rights advocates and NGOs in other provinces.
It was under her direction that INADI intervened in those cases. In fact, Spaventa can be
considered as a feminist institutional activist, who is part of the feminist movement, and
has worked from within the state for the pursuit of feminist legal strategies. Given that
INADI is a federal institution for rights protection and anti-discrimination with provincial
delegations, its local representatives enjoy from institutional autonomy from local
authorities. INADIs institutional network at the subnational level has been strengthened
since its reform in 2005, when it was transferred to the National Ministry of Justice,
Security and Human Rights, and established as one of its institutional purposes the
federalization of its actions through the creation of delegations in the provinces. Nowadays,
the institution counts on local delegations in the twenty-three provinces and the
Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Furthermore, with regards specifically to its role in the
defense of womens rights, during its presidency at the national level by Mara Jos
Lubertino (2006-2009), the gender perspective was strengthen within the institution, and
local delegates with a trajectory in the defense of womens rights were appointed in several
local delegations, among them in the provinces of Chubut, Entre Ros and Salta (Tolosa,
interview 2014).

Secondly, the Womens Commission at UNSA, founded in 1987 by two University

professors who are also emblematic figures of the feminist movement in Salta, has had a
fundamental role in the development of legal mobilization for womens rights in the

proceedings to facilitate social actors intervention in the judicial process especially

through public hearings and amicus curiae submissions (Brinks 2005; Ruibal 2012).

11
province.12 The role of this institution in feminist legal mobilization in Salta has been
twofold: on the one hand, its work has been determinant for the development of gender
studies and gender training, and in particular for the education of a young generation of
feminist lawyers and activists in the province as well as in other Northwestern provinces
(Femenias 2005). On the other hand, the Commission has also played a direct and activist
role in feminist litigation strategies, through its formal participation in judicial cases, as
reported bellow. Feminist activist and lawyers in Salta recognize the key role of the
Commission in terms of intellectual input and gender training (Caliva, interview 2013;
Gaspar, interview 2013; Morales, interview 2013; Spaventa, interview 2013).

The independence of the Commission with respect to local politics has been assured by its
belonging to the National University, and this institutional factor has allowed it to introduce
a gender perspective in the midst of a traditionalist cultural environment. One of the
Commissions founders and current Director, explains that one of its main strengths is its
autonomy, due to the fact that the University has never placed limits on the Commissions
activities (Carrique, interview 2013). In Argentina, National Universities are financed by
the federal State and are autonomous from governments. The work of the Womens
Commission should be understood as part of the development of academic feminism in
Argentina, particularly within national universities, which has taken place since the
democratic transition (Femenias 2005), but it can also be considered as a vanguard
initiative, conserving that it was around the years 2000-2005 that there has been an
impressive growth (an explosion) in gender studies and gender groups and commissions
at National Universities throughout the country (Quiroga, interview 2014).

Finally, the local Public Defender, which can intervene in cases involving low-income
claimants, has been determinant for the development of strategic litigation for womens
rights in Salta. Since 1994, when she was appointed by the local Magistrates Council,
Saltas Public Defender has been Natalia Buira, who has been an ally of the feminist
movement within the state structure. She is not formally part of the movement, but has
consistently worked in contact with feminist organizations and rights advocates, and from
her position has developed an activist role in the defense of the rights of women and other
oppressed groups in Salta.13 As Smulovitz points out, given that the Argentinean legal
system requires plaintiffs to count on legal representation in all cases, the role of Public
Defenders is crucial for effective Access to justice by low income individuals and groups
(2013: 250).

The problem is how to assure the independent work of these institution in subnational units.
In the Salta case, which is different in this regards from most other Argentinean provinces,
12
The Commission was created by Violeta Carrique, who is nowadays a key referent of
the Multisectorial, and Mara Julia Palacios, and it was formally approved by the
Universitys Council in 1988 (Carrique, interview 2013). For a complete account of the
Commissions history, see Palacios and Carrique 2005; Femenias 2005).
13
A detailed account of the main cases carried out by Buira can be found at: Historia de
vida: Natalia Buira, La otra voz Digital, 7 de marzo de 2010 (available at:
http://www.laotravozdigital.com/natalia-buira/).

12
the Public Ministry is governed by a collegiate body and does not depend on the highest
local court. This institutional factor promotes the independence of the Public Defender with
respect to the local political and judicial powers. In this way, the formal autonomy of this
institution, granted by Saltas constitution, has allowed Buira to keep her work even when
she is generally opposed to the governments policy on women and other disadvantaged
groups.14 On the other hand, support by the womens movement is considered as a factor
that sustains Buiras position within the State, as local authorities know that the feminist
and the LGBT movements would strongly react was she jeopardized in her functions
(Menini, interview 2013). The key role of Buira in feminist legal mobilization in Salta
confirms the importance of autonomous movement allies within the state structure,
although in this specific case this autonomy was not fostered by federalisms arrangements,
but by the constitutional division of powers in Salta.

Federalism and the resources of feminist legal activists in Salta

According to Argentinas judicial federalism, most types of rights claims must be presented
first at local courts.15 This institutional factor affects the dynamics of subnational legal
mobilization in a country with a sharp pattern of regional economic inequalities
(Gervasoni 2010: 132), where there is also a highly provincial unevenness in terms of the
availability of resources for legal mobilization by local legal activists. In this context, that
feature of the countrys federalisms architecture has promoted the interaction between
local legal activists with national-level human rights organizations located in the countrys
capital city of Buenos Aires, where the bulk of strategic litigation takes place, and in this
way it has strengthened the possibilities of feminist legal advocates in Salta to pursue
strategic litigation at the local level.

This interaction has been facilitated through incentives and capacities both at the
subnational and national levels. On the one hand, legal activists in Salta count on legal
expertise and gender training, as well as with social capital and connections both among
them and with rights organizations and lawyers outside the province. Young feminist
lawyers, who are part of the movement and received education and training by the
Womens Commission at UNSA, count also on social capital and connections at the level
of state institutions, as well as with human rights organizations and legal activists from
other provinces (Abbut Carol, interview 2013; Ramos, interview 2013; Spaventa, interview

14
Although, reportedly, her standing in this regards has not taken place without cost,
since her ascend to higher positions in particular, the collegiate body within the Public
Ministry- has been blocked (Menini, interview 2013).
15
In Argentina, following the United States model, the system of constitutional control
is diffuse and concrete and there is no direct action of unconstitutionality. Every judge has
competence to determine the constitutionality of a norm, and the national Supreme Court is
the final interpreter of the Constitution and federal laws. The Supreme Courts has original
and exclusive competence on limited types of cases, which depend on the subjects
involved: when a province is a party as well as in those issues concerning ambassadors,
ministers and foreign consuls (constitutional article 117).
13
2013).16 This has allowed them to identify relevant cases and put forward strong litigation
strategies, and in turn gain attention and support by external actors to their initiatives.

In Salta there is low institutionalization and professionalization of the movement in the

sense that there are not paid activists, no established offices for feminist organizations, and
there are only a few organizations with statutes as legal entities. However, despite the lack
of organizational infrastructure and financing resources, the legal and gender training of a
young generation of feminist advocates in Salta indicates a degree of professionalization of
the movement, and their connection to federal officials and national organizations indicates
a degree of institutionalization, although the literatures traditional definitions of
institutionalization/professionalization overlook cases like this. Counting on those
capacities, Saltas feminist activists have been able to complement their resources with the
support by prominent national-level rights advocacy organizations, which in some cases
provided legal standing and resources to litigate before the Supreme Court.

Those resources can be crucial in a legal system like the Argentinean one, whose rules of
legal standing in collective rights claims establish that only organizations with legal
personhood can submit them.17 The constitutional reform of 1994 set the institutional
framework for collective proceedings and broadened the means for public interest litigation
in Argentina, by widening the scope of amparo and habeas corpus briefs and allowing for
the use of these remedies to defend rights that have a collective dimension, among them, in
the amparo case, the rights of groups affected by any kind of discrimination; at the same
time, it established that these claims must be filled by a social organization registered as a
legal entity, and with a direct institutional interest in the case (art. 43, National
Constitution). In this way, the normative framework for one of the privileged instruments
for the development of strategic litigation in the country reinforces the necessity of
counting on organizational resources or a support structure for legal mobilization, for the
lack thereof can imply lack of legal standing for class actions. So, in the Salta case, it was
in the interest of local legal activists to count on support by national-level in some strategic
litigation instances.

On the other hand, there exist in Argentina strong human rights organizations that emerged
mostly since the last dictatorship (see Jelin 1994), which are located in Buenos Aires and
have the organizational capacity for forum-shopping for litigation opportunities at the
16
For example, some feminist lawyers working in Salta are in close contact with
referents in the field of public interest litigation for womens rights in Argentina, who had
promoted the so-called Freddo case on equality at the workplace (for information on this
case, see Puga and Otero 2010). Furthermore, the interaction between feminist lawyers in
Argentina has been recently boosted by the creation, in 2010, of a National Network of
Female Lawyers for Human Rights, which allows them to share experiences on litigation
for womens rights, to and organize more rapidly when cases present in different points
throughout the country.
17
Other Latin American systems, such as those of Costa Rica and Colombia, have more
flexible rules of legal standing for rights claims, allowing for marginalized individuals and
groups to submit their claims without legal representation and without formal requirements
for social organizations (Wilson and Cordero 2006; Wilson 2009).
14
subnational level. The Association for Civil Rights (ADC) is one of the most prominent of
them, and has extensively collaborated with local feminist advocates in Salta, providing
them with institutional resources to comply with standing rules, as well as with an
organizational structure to litigate in Buenos Aires before the Supreme Court. Part of the
incentives for this organization to invest its resources in those processes were related to the
potentiality of these cases to reach the national Supreme Court (Abbut Carol, interview
2013).

Through these institutional interactions feminist legal advocates in Salta have been able to
pursue the two following notable processes of strategic litigation.

Equality at the Workplace: the Sisnero case

The first case of strategic litigation for womens rights to reach Saltas courts had its origin
in the search for work as a bus driver in the city of Salta by Mirtha Sisnero, a young woman
without initial links to the womens movement. This case triggered a progressive
jurisprudence on gender discrimination at the workplace by the first instance local court,
and in turn it was as well as the first case of strategic litigation for womens rights to be
decided and upheld by the national the Supreme Court. Since 2004, and for three years,
Sisnero had actively applied for a job as a bus driver at the seven private companies that
provide public transportation services in that city, and had got the required training and
license, but she was not even considered as a potential candidate for that position. As it
happens also in most Argentinean cities, the public transportation system in Salta had never
hired a woman.18

In 2007, Sisnero made her case public through an open letter in the local press.19 As a
consequence of that publication, the Public Defender Natalia Buira, as well as the Delegate
of INADI Vernica Spaventa contacted her, they discussed the possible ways of action, and
Buira eventually offered her to litigate the case on grounds of gender discrimination, and tu
submit a collective amparo claim, that could have general effects for all women in Salta
(Sisnero, interview 2013). On March 2008, Sisnero and the Foundation Entre Mujeres,
18
According to a report by the Center of Studies on Women and Work of the CTA
(Argentine Workers Central), in Argentina, the transport sector is, after the construction
sector, the second most segregated one against women (86% of workers are men), and it is
also one of the jobs with the highest wages (cited by Mariana Carbajal, Un dictamen
contra la discriminacin, Pgina/12, June 28 2013). By 2010, only in a few cities
throughout the country (Rosario, Buenos Aires, Caleta Olivia, Mendoza y Crdoba) had
women been employed as bus drivers, although they represent a low percentage of the total
workers (for example, in Buenos Aires, 1%) (Puga and Otero 2010).
19
Her Letter to the Editor was published on June 8 2007 at El Tribuno, the leading
newspaper in Salta. Sisnero explains this decisin: after having past through all the
companies myself, without media coverage, without anybody else, one day I got tired and
wrote that letter (interview, 2013). The text of her published letter reads: I would be
pleased if this kind of discrimination that arises from assuming that women cannot drive a
bus comes to an end.
15
legally sponsored by the Public Defender and formally accompanied by the UNSA
Womens Commission under the figure of Adherente, filled a collective amparo claim
before the local Civil and Commercial Appellate Tribunal, on grounds of gender
discrimination at the workplace. They demanded the incorporation of Sisnero as a bus
driver, and the establishment of a quota to be occupied exclusively by women until there
was an equitable gender representation among bus drivers in the private companies that
provide the public transport service in Salta. The claim was grounded on the right to
equality and non-discrimination in access to work, granted by constitutional norm and
human rights treaties with constitutional status.

The Public Defender conducted the strategic litigation process, and INADI supported it
from the beginning and presented an amicus curiae brief in support of the claim. This was
the first time that INADI intervened in a judicial case in Salta, and it was also the first
amicus brief admitted by Saltas judicial system (Spaventa, interview 2013). The support
by UNSA and INADI was acknowledged by judicial authorities during the legal process as
a sign of the institutional relevance of the case.20 For its part, the Fundation Entre Mujeres,
one of the few feminist organizations in Salta that was registered as a legal entity, was
convoked by the Public Defender in order to comply with the formal requirements to fill a
collective claim, and since that moment this organization accompanied the case (Caliva,
interview 2013).

In November 2009, the claim was upheld by provincial Judge Mario D`Jallad. It should be
noted that Saltas Constitution establishes that the plaintiffs can choose the judge to decide
an amparo claim, whose decision can be appealed directly to the local highest Court (art.
87). The plaintiffs had chosen Judge D`Jallad because in previous cases he had shown an
interest for gender matters (Sisnero, interview 2013). The Judges decision ordered the
incorporation of Sisnero as a worker in the public transport system, and, as a remedial
action, it established the companies obligation to hire a 30 percent of women. 21 The
sentence argued that the situation of discrimination was evidenced by the fact that no
women had ever been hired in the public transport system, which made it unnecessary to
prove the existence of discriminatory conducts, and it defined this state of affairs as a
situation of violence against women. This decision has been considered as the most
progressive judicial decision in the country with regards to equality at the workplace (Puga
and Otero 2010),22 and its rationale and the remedial measures it established were
eventually followed by the 2014 Supreme Courts decision.
20
National Public Prosecutor, Alejandra Gils Carb (Expte. CJS 33.102/09
Sisnero Dictamen Alejandra Gils Carb: S.C. 8.932, L. XLVI, Sisnero, Mirtha Graciela y
otros c. Tadelva SRL y otros s/amparo), p. 7.
21
C. Civ. y Com. Salta, sala 5, Sisnero, Mirtha G., Caliva, La V., Bustamante,
Sandra, Fundacin Entre Mujeres v. Tadelva S.R.L. y otros s/ amparo, November 18, 2009.
22
The decision was considered as an innovation with respect to its main precedent
in the field of gender equality at the workplace, the so-called Freddo case, decided in the
city of Buenos Aires in 2002. That had been the first case in which an Argentinean court
condemned a private company, the chain of ice-cream shops Freddo, whose recruitment
policies openly discriminated against women, to comply with meassures that granted
16
The transport companies appealed the decision before Saltas Superior Tribunal de Justicia,
which in June 2010 downturned it, arguing that there was not proof that the companies
behavior had deliberately discriminated against women, for the only fact of being women,
in their recruitment processes.23 The plaintiffs appealed this decision to the national
Supreme Court. On May 20, 2014, the Court upheld the claim, and for the first time in its
institutional history it decided on a case of strategic litigation for womens rights. The
Court argued that the principle of equality and the prohibition of discrimination are
structural components of the constitutional and international legal order, and that these
provisions concerned formal norms as well as practices, and state institutions as well as
private actors.24 It also considered that the proof submitted by the plaintiffs particularly
regarding the fact that the companies had never hired a woman- was sufficient to prove the
discriminatory situation, and that Saltas Superior Tribunal had not followed the Supreme
Courts jurisprudence regarding the standard of proof in complex discrimination cases, in
which discrimination can be presumed but is hard to demonstrate.25

Secular Education at Public Schools: A Feminist Legal Claim

The second case of feminist strategic litigation initiated in Salta was directed to claim for a
secular education in the provinces public schools. The process of mobilization in this case
was initiated by a group of 200 parents who disagreed with the fact that their children were
subject to Catholic practices in Saltas primary schools. Those practices included, on a
daily basis, mandatory prayers before the start of classes, writing prayers and religious
phrases in school materials, and graces before meals. Furthermore, families whose children
attended public schools were obliged to fill in a form stating their religious affiliation;
schools organized visits to the Virgin of the Miracle (Saltas Patron Virgin), there were
Catholic signs at schools buildings and Catholic rituals during school hours, and most
fundamentally, there was a mandatory course which in practice consisted on Catholic
religion.26

gender equality (Maurino, Nino and Sigal 2005). (Fundacin Mujeres en Igualdad y otro
c/ Freddo S.A. s/amparo, Cmara Nacional de Apelaciones en lo Civil, sala H, Ciudad de
Buenos Aires, 16 de Diciembre de 2002).
23
"Sisnero, Mirtha G., Caliva, La V., Bustamante, Sandra y Fundacin Entre
Mujeres v. Tadelva S.R.L., Ahynarca S.A., Alto Molino S.R.L. y otros s/ amparo - recurso
de apelacin", pp. 628- 629.
24
Supreme Court, S. 932. XLVI. Recurso de hecho Sisnero, Mirtha Graciela y otros
c/ Taldelva SRL y otros s/ amparo, May 20, 2014.
25
The Court refered to the Pellcori case (Pellicori, Liliana Silvia c/ Colegio
Pblico de. Abogados de la Capital Federal s/amparo. Supreme Court, November 15 2011).
26
This course was called education in values, but it consists on Catholic religion.
This situation is reinforced because the only institution certified to confer the necessary
degree to teach these courses (called Professorship on Sacred Sciences Monsignor
Tavella) depends on the Catholic Church, and is oriented to instruct pastoral assistants and
Catholic leaders. In fact, none of the other religious groups in Salta counts on the operative
capacity to provide education on their own values at the public school system (Gmez
Augier 2013).
17
Salta is an emblematic case -a more evident and formalized one- of a practice that has also
been detected, although to a lesser extent, in some other provinces.27 It is considered as
paradigmatic in this regards, because confessional education is mentioned in the provincial
constitution, which establishes the right of parents or tutors for their children to receive a
kind of religious education according to their own beliefs (art. 49), and Saltas Law of
Education (Law No. 7546 of 2008) establishes that public schools should impart religious
education during normal school hours.

The group of parents that were against this situation searched for legal advice at INADIs
local delegation. Vernica Spaventa, who presided INADI at that time, proposed them to
submit a collective amparo claim on discrimination grounds. Spaventa also connected the
parents with feminist litigant lawyers in Salta Graciela Abbut Carol and Gabriela Gaspar,
who assumed the legal representation of the parents. These two feminist attorneys, who are
part of the feminist movement in Salta, explain that they considered this as a crucial claim
for the advancement of womens rights in the province, for one of the conditions for the
advancement of womens rights in Salta is the separation between the State and the Church
(Abbut Carol, interview 2013; Gaspar, interview 2013). Spaventa also contacted members
of the Association for Civil Rights (ADC). The intervention of ADC was essential in order
to present a collective amparo claim, for reasons of legal standing. This was so because, in
the first place, the local Public Defender could not take over the case, given that the
plaintiffs income was above the income requirements for its intervention. Secondly, there
was no social organization in Salta that could be granted legal standing in this case -for
example, the feminist Foundation Entre Mujeres could not demonstrate a direct
institutional interest on the issue, as required by the rules on legal standing in collective
amparo cases. For its part, ADC became interested in this case because of the possibility of
pursuing the claim before the national Supreme Court and addressing the problem of state
neutrality on religious matters (Abbut Carol, interview 2013).

Eventually, in June 2010, a collective amparo claim was filled before the local Civil and
Commercial Appellate Court by nine mothers and the ADC, with legal sponsorship in Salta
by lawyers Abbut Carol and Gaspar, against the provinces Ministry of Education. They
argued that the presence of religious practices at public schools creates an unequal and
discriminatory treatment for children who do not profess the Catholic religion. They
requested the end of those practices and the declaration of unconstitutionality of article 28
of the provincial Law of Education, which establishes that public schools should impart
religious education during normal school hours. The claim argued that the national
Constitution and human rights treaties with constitutional hierarchy required the States
neutrality in religious matters, and the respect of ethnic and religious minorities, freedom of
consciousness, and the rights to privacy and equality, which implied the prohibition of any
type of confessional teaching at public schools.

27
Attempts to implement Catholic education at public schools have been reported in
other Northwestern provinces, including Tucumn, Catamarca and Santiago del Estero
(Abbut Carol, interview 2013; Gaspar, interview 2013; Esquivel 2009: 13).
18
In March 2012, the claim was partially upheld by the first instance Judge Marcelo
Domnguez, and although his decision did not declare the provincial education law as
unconstitutional, it considered that there was a discriminatory situation. As measures to
stop it, it established that the mandatory religious education course should be taught as a
cultural fact, according to contents that respect freedom of consciousness and not centered
in Catholicism; that students and their families should not be obliged to reveal their
religious affiliation; and that all types of religious rituals and symbols be eliminated from
public schools. Litigant lawyer Abbut Carol (interview, 2013) explains that this decision
was used by the plaintiffs and their allies as an instrument for political and cultural struggle.
They went to public schools with the sentence and talked to the authorities, who took
religious images away. In this sense, she observes that religious education was naturalized
in Salta, and that the decision had a symbolic effect, in that it was used in order to
destabilize that ingrained conception, following Sabel and Simons (2004) idea about the
use of rights to disentrench institutional practices.

The local Ministry of Education appealed the decision before Saltas Superior Tribunal. On
July 12, 2013, this Tribunal turned down the first instance decision, on grounds that the
current legislation did not discriminate against those students who did not want to attend
the religious education class.28 The decision argued that the Argentina is juridically
structured from its foundation as a Catholic Apostolic nation. It also drew on a
traditionalist argument by affirming that particularly the population of the province of Salta
was mostly Catholic and, thus, not providing Catholic education public schools would be
discriminating against poor children who cannot attend private Catholic schools, or who
live far away from urban centers. By invoking the rights of the majority, the Court ignored
the minority rights that were central to the demand. It has been observed that after the
Superior Tribunals decision in 2013, schools resumed their former practices in this regards
(Abbut Carol, interview 2013).

On July 16, 2013, the ADC appealed the decision before the national Supreme Court. The
claim was admitted, but the Courts decision is still pending. The Supreme Court does not
have official control over its docket but it can exercise some discretion over its overloaded
agenda by choosing the timing of its decisions, and there is practically no established
deadline for it to handing down a decision on a case.

DISCUSSION

This paper has argued that in order to account for at least some cases of subnational legal
mobilization we should factor in the impact of federalism on those processes, and it has
attempted to explain the mechanisms of that influence in contexts of unfavorable conditions
for legal mobilization, which can be found particularly in highly unequal federal countries.
The study has shown the role of federalism both at the level of formal state institutions as
well as at the level of civil society, in fostering the resources of feminist legal actors at the
28
Castillo, Carina Viviana et al.; Asociacin por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) vs.
Provincia de Salta Amparo Recurso de apelacin (EXPTE. N CJS 33.659/10).
19
subnational level for the pursuit of legal strategies, particularly by affecting the dynamics
between local and national NGOs, and by promoting the presence of autonomous
government agencies at the subnational level.

The examination a non-typical case illuminates aspects of legal mobilization phenomena in

federal countries that complement the arguments both of the fields of legal mobilization
and gender and federalism studies. In this regards, the study confirms Lemaitre and
Sandviks observation that the application of leading analytical frameworks to a different
context from that in which they have been developed highlights the impact of contextual
differences on dominant theories (2015: 68). Drawing on insights from both strands of
research, modified to Saltas context, the study highlights that federalism matters not only
because it offers more possibilities for choosing among institutional venues, which can be
done by national-level rights organizations, but also because, in that search, it can
strengthen the means of local legal activists. It also shows that national-level NGOs with a
capacity for forum shopping may seek and support relevant legal strategies initiated at the
subnational level, and not necessarily search for more amicable jurisdictions. This is
another form of two-level games and forum shopping in federal systems from that expected
both from the gender and federalism literature and studies on law and social movements.
Furthermore, the interaction between local and national-level feminist legal advocates is
permitted or mediated by the legal expertise and gender training of local actors, as well as
their social capital, which can be considered as components of the support structure, as they
indicate a degree of professionalization and institutionalization, although usual definitions
of support structures do not incorporate these elements.

The dynamics described in this study can be expected to have an influence also in other
processes of subnational feminist legal mobilization. In the Argentinean case, it is probable
that the recent institutional development of gender groups within national universities, as
well as the recent expansion of INADIs local delegations throughout the country, may
have an impact also on other subnational cases. Furthermore, the interaction between
national-level NGOs and local feminist legal activists may become a more common feature
throughout the country. For many years, the womens movement and big rights advocacy
and human rights organizations in Argentina did not work together. The Argentinean
feminist movement had grown outside of the sphere of the big human rights NGOs
(Gerhardi 2010), such as the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) and the ADC,
which are some of the most resourceful and powerful rights advocacy organization in the
country.29 This had had an impact on the material resources, or the support structure
available for legal mobilization for womens rights in the country. However, since
approximately 2009, a more intense relationship started to develop between feminist
organizations and the more traditional rights advocacy and human rights NGOs (Bascary
2010). Particularly important in this process has been the development of a gender-sensitive

29
As has been observed, the NGOs with a stronger background on strategic litigation
had a different agenda, since they were mostly oriented to the fight against impunity,
particularly until the Supreme Courts decision to overturn the laws that granted impunity
to crimes of the last dictatorship, in 2005 (Bascary 2010).
20
perspective within the ADC (Puga 2010).30 So, we can expect that as it has happened in
Salta, ADC and possibly other national-level organizations may collaborate with local
actors in other subnational legal strategies.

The findings are also likely to apply beyond Argentina, to other federal countries with
similar conditions of high regional inequalities that affect the distribution of resources
among legal activists across subnational units, that is, under the conditions that are common
to most subnational units in non-industrialized federal democracies, such as those in the
Latin American region. In those contexts we can expect to find interactions among
subnational and national-level rights organizations, favored by federal judicial
architectures. This can be so given a general concentration of resources in the capital city or
in a few main cities in this type of federations, with the consequent presence of stronger
NGOs, and a low institutionalization of the womens movement outside of the main cities,
with considerable less resources for strategic litigation. Specifically affecting feminist legal
mobilization for womens rights, the interaction between feminist organizations and well
established human rights organization has been a recent common development in other
Latin American federations beyond Argentina, particularly in Brazil and Mexico.31

Finally, the creation of federal agencies for rights protection connected with parallel
institutions at the subnational level has been a common development in other Latin
American federations as part of the process of institution building in the aftermath of
democratic transitions.32 Furthermore, academic feminism and institutionalized groups for
gender studies have developed particularly since the transitions to democracy in Latin
America, and in federal countries in the region (besides Argentina, in Brazil, Mexico and
Venezuela) they are part of national universities located at subnational entities. This is a
relevant issue to be taken into account in the assessment of legal mobilization for womens
rights in the region, given that the lack of relevant education or training on gender matters
at law schools has been singled out by feminist legal activists in different Latin American
settings as one of the main obstacles for the development of strategic litigation on womens
30
For its part, in 2011, CELS joined the National Campaign for Legal, Free and Safe
Abortion, promoted by the feminist movement (see La sociedad reclama el debate,
Pgina 12, July 18 2011).
31
This recent interaction has been promoted by international donors, particularly with
regards to the struggle for reproductive rights in the region (Beltrn and Daz de Len,
interview 2011). The lack of support by human rights NGOs to the feminist cause in cases
such as Brazil and Mexico has been attributed to the fact that traditional and strong human
rights organizations were linked to progressive Catholicism, and were as a consequence
inimical to the defence of reproductive rights and feminist claims more generally (Beltrn
and Daz de Len 2011, interview; Soares, interview 2012).
32
For example in Mexico, since the creation in 1990 of the National Commission for
Human Rights with a role equivalent to an ombudsman- similar subnational human rights
commissions were created within local governments across the country, and since the
reform of article 102 of the National Constitution in 1992, the local commissions are
accountable to the National Commission, which since then became a second instance
decision organ in cases of human rights violations.

21
rights in their respective countries (Bascary, interview 2010; Beltrn y Daz de Len,
interview 2012; Davis Mattar, interview 2012; Gerhardi, interview 2013; Gonalves,
interview 2013). The presence of gender training initiatives by members of the movement
at the local level, may produce a huge impact by contributing to the education of feminist
lawyers, who may become key actors in the development of legal mobilization at the local
level. As shown by the Saltas case, these institutions can also have a direct role in
litigation strategies for womens rights.

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Alvarez, Sonia. 1990. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Womens Movements in

Transition, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Banaszak, Lee. 2010. The women's movement inside and outside the state. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

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INTERVIEWS

Abbut Carol, Graciela. Litigant lawyer, legal advisor of the Foro de Mujeres, member of
the National Network of Feminist Lawyers for Human Rights. Author interview, Salta,
August 8, 2013.

Beltrn, Alma and Fernanda Daz de Len. 2011. Members of the Legal Area of GIRE,
Author interview, Mxico DF, September 29.

Cceres, Miguel Angel. History Professor. Author interview, Salta, August 9 2013.

Caliva, Vernica. President of Fundation Entre Mujeres, Author interview, Salta, August
10, 2013.

Carrique, Violeta. President of the Womens Commission, National University of Salta,

member of the Multisectorial de Mujeres. Author interview, Salta, August 18, 2013.
Davis Mattar, Laura. 2012. Program manager, Conectas Human Rights; member of Global
Doctors for Choice/Brazil. Author interview, So Paulo, August 31.

Gaspar, Gabriela. 2013. Litigant lawyer, member of the National Network of Feminist
Lawyers, and member of ILEC. Author interview, Salta, August 8.

Gherardi, Natalia. Executive Director of ELA, Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y

Gnero (Latin American Team of Gender and Justice). Author interview. Buenos Aires.
December 23, 2010.

Gmez Augier, Agustn. Journalist, President of ILEC- Salta. Author interview, Salta,
August 9, 2013.

Gonalves, Tamara. 2012. Coordinator of CLADEM /Brazil (Latin American and

Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Womens Rights). Author interview, Brasilia,
August 16.

Menini, Mnica. Legal Advisor of the Foro de Mujeres, member of the National Network
of Feminist Lawyers for Human Rights. Author interview, Salta, August 4, 2013.

Morales, Alfonsina. Director of the Program of Protection for Victims of Domestic

Violence, Municipality of Salta. Author interview, Salta, August 7, 2013
26
Puga, Mariela. 2010. Public interest lawyer and Executive Director of Mujeres del Sur.
Author interview. Crdoba, December 29.

Quiroga, Maria. 2014. Member of Catedra Abierta de Genero at Universidad Nacional de la

Patagonia in Trelew. Author interview, October 3.

Ramos, Alicia. President of the Multisectorial de Mujeres. Author interview, Salta, August
9, 2013.

Soares, Regina. 2012. Sociologist; Member of Catholics for Choice Brazil. Author
inteview, So Paulo, August 27.

Sisnero, Mirtha. Main plaintiff in the claim for equal opportunity at the workplace. Author
interview, Salta, August 12, 2013.

Spaventa, Vernica. 2013. Law Clerk at the office of Judge Graciela Kauffman, ex
Delegate of INADI in Salta, member of the National Network of Feminist Lawyers for
Human Rights. Salta, August 4.

Tolosa, Alejandra. 2014. Representative of CLADEM Argentina in Chubut, ex Delegate of

INADI in Chubut (2006-2013), President of the Convention for the Reform of the Carta
Orgnica (Constitution) of Puerto Madryn (2010). Author interview, Puerto Madryn,
October 3.

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