The Political Protagonism of Constitutional Courts in Addressing Violence Against Women: A Comparative Study between Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia

The contemporary landscape of feminist struggles in Latin America also extends into the legal field, particularly through demands directed at constitutional courts. In Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, recent decades reveal an intense process of constitutionalizing women’s rights and an increasing judicialization of public policies aimed at combating gender-based violence. The objective of this study is to analyze the political protagonism exercised by the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal), the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice (Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación), and the Colombian Constitutional Court in addressing violence against women. Protagonism is understood as the degree of jurisprudential innovation their decisions achieve in relation to domestic legislative frameworks and international obligations. The methodology combines comparative constitutional analysis and documentary research, focusing on decisions issued within the constitutional jurisdiction of each country and observing the effects of these decisions on their respective legal landscapes. The study examines the ways in which each court constructs judicial interpretations of gender-based violence. By articulating the three cases, it seeks to illuminate convergences, divergences, and regional patterns in the constitutional protection of women’s rights, as well as their limits, thereby contributing to broader debates on the political role of Latin American constitutional courts in advancing women’s right to live free from violence.