Argentina's Supreme Court Interim Order Keeps Rural Land Law Alive as Congress Braces for October 15 Showdown
BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's Supreme Court issued an interim injunction on October 9 that temporarily restored the Rural Land Law (Law 26,737), keeping limits on foreign purchases of Argentine rural land in force while litigation proceeds. The order reversed the practical effect of a late-September judicial move that had been read as striking the law down and opening unrestricted land sales, a reading that triggered plans for mass protest.
Enacted in 2011, the Rural Land Law caps foreign ownership of rural land. President Milei's omnibus decree DNU 70/2023 sought to loosen those limits, tying the land question to the broader fight over the decree's survival. Opposition parties and social organisations planned a large mobilisation for the day Congress votes, to pressure lawmakers.
Argentina Reports said 122 deputies had requested a special session of the lower house for October 15 to annul the decree and reinstate the land law. The governing camp countered with scheduling: the Chamber of Deputies presidency and La Libertad Avanza formally convened a government-agenda special session for October 21, a move designed in part to keep the opposition from reaching the 129-deputy quorum needed to open the October 15 session.
The land fight feeds Argentina's resource-sovereignty debate: critics group deregulated land sales with the glacier law and the RIGI investment regime as concessions to foreign capital, while the government stresses investment and property rights. The quorum battles of October 15 and 21 will be a window on the real balance of forces in Congress.
Sources: Compiled from Argentina Reports' October 2026 coverage of the land-law protests and Supreme Court injunction, and Particle News on the October 21 special session.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 阿根廷潘帕斯草原的溪流与牧场，Luis Argerich from Buenos Aires, Argentina 摄，CC BY 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）
