Care as a Human Right and a Public Good: Mapping Latin America’s Reconfiguration of Unpaid Care Work

In August 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) issued the first-ever ruling from an international tribunal about the right to care. In Consultative Opinion 31, the IACHR affirmed three dimensions to care as a human right: the right to be cared for, the right to give care, and the right to self-care. The IACHR established that care constitutes a “universal human necessity and an indispensable condition for enjoying dignified existence” and that care, as a human right, sustains other human rights, like the right to health (IACHR 2025a). The IACHR further expressed concern about the unequal distribution of care burdens and called upon governments to establish measures that would advance the human right to care based on “social and familial co-responsibility … and the principles of equality and non-discrimination” (IACHR 2025a). The ruling profoundly reconceptualizes care’s normative and practical dimensions. If care is a human right with shared responsibility underlying its realization, then governments are obligated to provide care. Care becomes a public good that can be demanded, rather than a private cost that (mostly women) must bear.