What the Casa Rosada and Federico Sturzenegger were unable to reverse through legislation after popular rejection in the Senate has now been achieved by judicial decision. The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation issued a ruling that reinstates the full force of Article 154 of Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70/23, signed by Javier Milei in December 2023, effectively repealing the Rural Land Law No. 26,737 and eliminating any limits on foreign ownership of Argentine land.

The court's ruling overturns the landmark decision by Chamber III of the Federal Court of Appeals of La Plata, which had declared Article 154 unconstitutional following a collective injunction filed by the Center of Ex-Combatants of the Malvinas Islands (CECIM La Plata) . With this decision, the 15% cap on foreign ownership at the national and provincial levels, the 1,000-hectare limit per owner in the core agricultural zone, and the quotas that prevented a single country from monopolizing production areas are all eliminated.

The technicality to disarm sovereignty

To unblock the real estate deal involving the sale of land, Justices Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti chose to sidestep the fundamental debate on the clear unconstitutionality of legislating substantive matters through an executive decree. Instead, the court focused on a procedural technicality: declaring that the Malvinas War veterans lack "legal standing" to defend territorial integrity in court.

In its reasoning, the Court held that "given the clear absence of a collective right over a collective good, it is not possible to consider a case or controversy to have been established." The judges defined that territorial sovereignty belongs exclusively to the State and that "it can in no way be considered a collective good in the sense of Article 43 of the National Constitution."

Under this restrictive criterion, the Court disregarded the legal representativeness of the CECIM to protect the country's geographical sovereignty and issued a strong warning to lower courts for admitting collective protection actions promoted by civil society organizations.

Free rein to foreign states and border areas

The practical and legal implications of the ruling are immediate and alarming. With the National Registry of Rural Lands and all inter-ministerial controls established by Law 26.737 rendered ineffective, the rural real estate market is left in a state of complete deregulation.

Constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez denounced the magnitude of the legal vulnerability generated by this resolution: "Any foreign individual or legal entity or any foreign State can buy all the rural land wherever they want —including border areas— without any limit."

The court ruling dismantles the last federal barrier just as cases of illegal appropriation are multiplying in the country:

The provinces as the last line of defense

With the fall of Law 26.737 at the federal level, consummated by the Supreme Court, the institutional map is fragmented and transfers the responsibility for defense to the provincial autonomies recognized in Article 124 of the National Constitution.

Initiatives such as the "Provincial Law for the Protection of Territorial Domain" presented in Tierra del Fuego by legislator Juan Matías Lapadula (Matter No. 411/2026) —which requires two-thirds of the legislature to dispose of strategic assets, creates a registry of final beneficiaries and prohibits camouflage via trusts— become emergency tools to prevent peripheral districts from being absorbed by transnational capital.

The Supreme Court has ruled that territorial sovereignty is not a collective asset that Argentine citizens can claim in court. By upholding Decree 70/23, the highest court paves the way for the Republic's borders, lakes, glaciers, and pampas to be subject to the highest international bidder.