Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)

40th anniversary of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)

We are also delighted to celebrate, with this project, the 40th anniversary of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), an Argentine human rights organization, founded in 1979 during the last military dictatorship. CELS promotes the protection of human rights and their effective exercise, justice and social inclusion – both nationally and internationally.

In its early years, CELS fought for truth and justice for the crimes committed under State terrorism and that’s when its alliance with artist León Ferrari was forged. At the end of the 1980s, CELS expanded its agenda to include human rights violations committed under democracy, their structural causes and their relationship to social inequality. CELS’ actions are aimed at shoring up the democratic State, public policy advocacy, expanding the effective exercise of rights, supporting victims and the search for justice.

In its core strategies—litigation, research, advocacy, and coalition building—CELS embraces its role as a political actor in the amplest, non-partisan sense, engaging in political processes with state actors to advance human rights. This work is done in alliance with other national, regional and international movements and organizations. Since 2016 CELS has taken initiative to achieve more effective actions to defend and promote human rights. As a result, it added the perspective of art to traditional strategies. The Augusto and León Ferrari’s Foundation (FALFAA) was a key ally in this endeavour. 

If you want to support CELS’ work for the protection and promotion of justice and social inclusion, please check: https://www.cels.org.ar/web/en/dona/  

Back to: Department of Communication and Media