The operability of international treaties in the Argentine Legal System: a critical analysis of the Argentine Supreme Court’s jurisprudential turn in Acevedo (2025) vis-à-vis Pinturas (2014)

Abstract

This article examines whether ratification by the National Executive Branch constitutes an indispensable prerequisite for the domestic and international effectiveness of international treaties. Employing a qualitative, doctrinal methodology and a case-law-based analysis, it critically assesses the recent decision of the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice (CSJN) in Acevedo (2025). In that judgment, the Court departed from the doctrine established in Pinturas (2014) by holding that the domestic effectiveness of a treaty is contingent upon prior executive ratification. In contrast, this study argues that legislative approval possesses sufficient constitutional autonomy to confer domestic legal effect upon the norm. To conclude otherwise would deprive the constitutional powers of the National Congress of their essential content (Arts. 75(22) and 77 of the Argentine Constitution), subordinating the effectiveness of a federal statute to the discretionary exercise of a foreign-affairs power. The article concludes that the conceptual distinction between the approving statute (ley aprobatoria) and the international treaty itself constitutes the Gordian knot for preserving the coherence of Argentina’s constitutional framework.