Introduction

In 2027, Colombia will mark the 35th anniversary of the Constitutional Court, established by the 1991 Constitution and formally inaugurated on February 17, 1992. Over the past three and a half decades, the Court has played a central role in shaping Colombia's social state under the rule of law and has become one of the most extensively studied constitutional courts in Latin America.

Its case law has profoundly shaped the protection of fundamental rights, equality, citizen participation, relations among branches of government, economic, social, and cultural rights, the recognition of historically discriminated groups, environmental protection, transitional justice, the peace process, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and ethnic communities, and the relationship between domestic law and international human rights law.

The acción de tutela, structural judgments, and the various mechanisms of constitutional review have made the Court a uniquely influential actor in Colombia's legal, political, and social life. Its decisions have reached far beyond the courtroom, shaping public policy, political debate, social movements, administrative practices, and the very way in which the Constitution is understood.

Yet these 35 years also raise questions that extend beyond the Court's achievements. The expansion of constitutional adjudication has generated debates over democratic legitimacy, the separation of powers, institutional capacity, compliance with judgments, judicial appointments, the development and modification of precedent, relations among jurisdictions, and the limits of judicial power. At the same time, far-reaching social, political, technological, and environmental transformations are creating new challenges for constitutional adjudication.

To mark this anniversary, Estudios Socio-Jurídicos invites scholars from Colombia and around the world to submit articles for a special issue critically examining the trajectory, transformations, tensions, and impacts of the Constitutional Court during its first 35 years, while also reflecting on the future challenges of Colombian constitutionalism.

Perspective and Topics of Interest

The journal will give priority to socio-legal and interdisciplinary studies that examine the trajectory, impact, and challenges of the Constitutional Court beyond strictly doctrinal or case-law analysis. We especially welcome innovative approaches, both descriptive and normative, that pose original questions and draw on empirical, comparative, historical, quantitative, or qualitative methodologies. Contributions that connect legal analysis with perspectives from political science, sociology, economics, history, gender studies, anthropology, critical legal studies, and other relevant disciplines are particularly encouraged.

We also invite research examining how the Court's decisions operate in practice, their social and institutional effects, processes of compliance and implementation, interactions between the Court and other public and private actors, and possible gaps between the judicial recognition of rights and their effective realization. The journal seeks to foster a pluralistic conversation that combines legal rigor with new questions, sources, and methodologies in order to understand the role of Colombian constitutional adjudication during its first 35 years and the challenges ahead. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The Constitutional Court and the transformation of the social state under the rule of law: assessing the role of constitutional case law in transforming Colombia's legal order, institutions, and social relations.
• The acción de tutela and access to justice: the evolution, transformations, strengths, and challenges of one of the principal rights-protection mechanisms established by the 1991 Constitution.
• Equality, gender, and diversity: the impact and limits of constitutional case law on gender equality, sexual and reproductive rights, sexual orientation, gender identity, families, and structural discrimination.
• Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and ethnic and cultural diversity: jurisprudential developments concerning autonomy, territory, prior consultation, legal pluralism, and collective rights.
• Constitution, armed conflict, peace, and transitional justice: the Court's role in peace processes, victims' rights, transitional justice, and tensions among peace, justice, and democracy.
• Economic, social, and cultural rights: health, education, labor, social security, housing, property, minimum subsistence, and the challenges of judicial intervention in public policy.
• Environment, territory, and climate change: the evolution of environmental case law, the rights of future generations, biodiversity, the energy transition, and emerging climate litigation.
• The Constitutional Court, democracy, and citizen participation: the legitimacy of judicial review, separation of powers, relations with Congress and the Executive, constitutional reform, the constitutional substitution doctrine, mechanisms of citizen participation, and tensions between constitutionalism and democracy.
• Structural judgments, compliance, and impact: empirical or theoretical analyses of compliance with the Court's decisions, judicial remedies, unconstitutional states of affairs, and the capacity of constitutional law to produce social transformation.
• Precedent, deliberation, and decision-making within the Court: the construction of constitutional precedent, shifts in case law, dissenting and separate opinions, institutional dynamics, and methods of interpretation.
• The Court and international law: dialogue with the Inter-American Human Rights System, the block of constitutionality, international treaties, and the transnational circulation of constitutional ideas.
• The Constitutional Court in comparative perspective: the influence of its case law in other countries, the global circulation of its decisions, and comparisons with constitutional courts and supreme courts in Latin America and other regions.
• Judicial independence, judicial appointments, and institutional legitimacy: the evolution of the Court's institutional design and challenges related to independence, composition, diversity, transparency, and accountability.
• Constitutionalism and inequality: the possibilities and limits of constitutional adjudication in addressing persistent economic, territorial, racial, and social inequalities in Colombia.
• New technologies and artificial intelligence: fundamental rights in digital environments, algorithms, data protection, artificial intelligence, freedom of expression, and future challenges for constitutional adjudication.
• The next 35 years: forward-looking work on emerging rights, the principal challenges the Constitutional Court will face, and the role constitutional adjudication should play in Colombian democracy.

This list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. Submissions addressing other questions related to the trajectory, impact, or future of the Constitutional Court are welcome, provided that they articulate a clear research question, make an original contribution to knowledge, and prioritize a socio-legal approach.

Approaches Especially Encouraged

The special issue seeks to reflect the diversity of approaches through which an institution such as the Constitutional Court can be studied. Consistent with the profile of Estudios Socio-Jurídicos, preference will be given to articles adopting socio-legal and interdisciplinary approaches, without excluding legal and constitutional analyses that engage with social, institutional, empirical, or normative questions. We particularly encourage submissions that are:

• socio-legal and empirical;
• historical;
• comparative;
• interdisciplinary;
• feminist and gender-focused;
• critical;
• grounded in the social sciences;
• focused on the implementation and impact of judicial decisions;
• attentive to territorial perspectives and voices traditionally underrepresented in scholarship on constitutional adjudication.

We will particularly value articles that use specific cases or jurisprudential developments to draw broader conclusions about the role of the Court in Colombian society.