By Alicia Ely Yamin
Chile is one of the few countries in Latin America that has not amended its constitution post-dictatorship. That is set to change on October 25th when the country will hold a plebiscite on constitutional reform.
Any new Chilean Constitution may well follow the path of constitutional reform elsewhere in the region. These reforms, which occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s, and more recently in Mexico, expanded social rights through expanding enumerations and/or incorporation of international human rights law into the constitutional text through “constitutional blocs” (bloques de constiucionalidad).
In situating what is at stake, it is important to recall that the evolution of health rights in Latin America is closely linked to contestation over boundaries between private morality and public policy, between individual and social responsibility, and between the role of the state and markets.
