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Women's sexual and reproductive rights are politicized worldwide, with the most contentious right being the right to safe, legal abortion. In Latin America, where one stands on the issue of abortion has become a central identity marker; a salient issue in electoral mobilization, and a matter of coalition building and high politics. As a consequence, legalized contestation over abortion is raging across Latin America, and indeed much of the world. This article conceptualizes this as “abortion lawfare” and develops a framework for analyzing the complex dynamics and long-term, multi-sited strategies at play in the wars over abortion. The concept of lawfare – despite and, to some extent, because of its ideological uses and connotations – serves as a useful heuristic tool for grasping these dynamics, and the lawfare typology brings out the different facets of the phenomenon in terms of actors, strategies, and arenas and provides the basis for analyzing how, in any given context, actors face multiple and shifting opportunity structures. This, in turn, influences the strategies they pursue and what is achieved. Resumo Os direitos reprodutivos e sexuais das mulheres são politizados ao redor do mundo, e o direito ao aborto legal e seguro é o mais controverso. Na América Latina, o lugar que certa pessoa ocupa no debate sobre aborto se tornou um marcador central de identidade, uma questão importante na mobilização eleitoral e um elemento de construção de coalizões e de política. Como consequência, a contestação jurídica sobre aborto está ocorrendo em toda a América Latina e, na verdade, em grande parte do mundo. Este artigo conceitua isso como “abortion lawfare” e desenvolve uma abordagem para analisar a dinâmica complexa e as estratégias multilocalizadas de longo prazo em jogo nas guerras pelo aborto. O conceito de lawfare – apesar de e, em certa medida, por causa de seus usos e conotações ideológicas – serve como ferramenta heurística útil para compreender essas dinâmicas, e a tipologia de lawfare traz à tona as diferentes facetas do fenômeno em termos de atores, estratégias e arenas, além de fornecer a base para analisar como, em qualquer contexto, os atores enfrentam estruturas de oportunidades múltiplas e dinâmicas. Isso, por sua vez, influencia as estratégias que eles perseguem e os resultados que alcançam.

The article analyses the process of legal mobilization for migrants’ rights and investigates how and with what effects, measured in terms of obtaining general policy response and ensuring implementation, legal actors and in particular civil society organizations have mobilized EU, international and domestic legislation on discrimination to promote migrants’ rights in Italy. It focuses in particular on two issues: access to employment in the public sector and access to welfare. Both issues have generated significant levels of litigation in domestic courts, with increasing involvement of civil society organizations. In relation to both, national legislation has been amended, in accordance with EU law, allowing access to employment in the public sector and extending the area of those that have the right to access to social welfare under equal conditions to categories of migrants protected under EU law. The article outlines the EU, International and domestic legislation on non-discrimination and equality for migrants, provides an overview of how litigation has been used to challenge in court the exclusion of migrants from employment in the public sector and welfare, tracks the process that brought to the reform and litigation in the aftermath highlighting the effects of litigation as a means for policy response and implementation. Discrimination, multilevel protection, migrants, welfare, employment, legal mobilization, policy response, implementation, civil society, courts.

Resumen:Desde la recuperación de la democracia en 1990, la movilización legal se ha vuelto una estrategia clave en el repertorio de acción del movimiento sindical chileno. Los sindicatos recurren cada vez más a la Dirección del Trabajo o los tribunales para contestar el poder de los empresarios y presionar al Estado para lograr cambios en el orden laboral heredado de la dictadura. En base a entrevistas a distintos actores, este artículo evalúa los efectos de este fenómeno para los trabajadores. Defiende que la movilización legal ha permitido a los sindicatos ganar ciertos derechos y ampliar su margen de maniobra en las empresas. Sin embargo, no ha generado cambios sustanciales en el orden laboral chileno. El artículo identifica dos causas de esto: 1) los efectos no deseados del uso de esta estrategia en la fuerza de la organización sindical; 2) los cambios en la orientación de la DT y los tribunales. Abstract:Since the recovery of democracy in 1990, legal mobilization has become a key strategy for the Chilean union movement. Trade unions increasingly turn to the Labor Department or the courts for challenging the employers' power and putting pressure over the State to make changes on the labor order. Based on interviews with different labor actors, this article evaluates the effects of this phenomenon for workers. It argues that legal mobilization has allowed unions to gain certain rights and expand their margin of action in companies. However, this strategy has not produced substantial changes in the inherited labor order. The article identifies two causes of this: 1) the undesirable effects of the use of this strategy on the strength of the trade union organization; 2) changes in the orientation of the Labor Department and the courts.

This study examines the role of the judiciary in the political process after the Arab Uprising, focusing on a Constitutional Court and its judgements in a case where the popular will was rejected via a judicial ruling. In particular, I will analyse a case of Kuwait where the Constitutional Court declared election void and ordered the dissolution of parliament, after the opposition had won a stable majority. This case conjures images of legal mobilization by the regime; however, considering the political context where the government and parliament were in a serious ongoing conflict, the constitutional rulings by the Constitutional Court can be evaluated as a mediator intended to ease the stalemate and prevent a fall into a more serious crisis concurrent with the political upheaval in other Arab countries.