The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ “Right to Care”

On August 7, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights broke new ground in international human rights law by recognizing the “right to care” as an autonomous and enforceable right. Advisory Opinion 31/25 recognizes care as an essential and universal human need on which functioning societies and humanity itself depend and outlines an array of state obligations to ensure that individuals, especially members of marginalized groups, can access forms of care necessary to ensure a dignified existence. Among them, states must recognize the economic and social value of both unpaid and paid forms of care, including by adopting comprehensive care systems, parental leave and flexible work policies, and social security nets; reduce the burdens and barriers that make caregiving inaccessible, unsafe, or inequitable; and redistribute care responsibilities more equitably among the state, the private sector, communities, and families. At this HPOD event, co-organized with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, panelists will bring to bear their decades of research, advocacy, and organizing experience in support of marginalized groups’ access to critical services and supports to explore the opportunities and limits of the Court’s conceptualization of the “right to care” across the diverse contexts throughout the Americas where they work.