[1] Between 1970 and 1980 in Argentina there was a big movement of the creation and development of human rights defense organizations such as: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and HIJOS[2] This was because of two main circumstances: the Dirty War and the universal development of the human rights concept after the two World Wars.
The Center of Legal and Social Studies was founded under this context by the end of the last military dictatorship of Argentina.
[3] The founders of this organization were the lawyers Alfredo Galleti, Augusto Conte, Boris Pasik, Emilio Mignone and the scientist Jose Westerkamp.
[citation needed] During the first stage, the organization was focused on documenting human rights violations by the dictatorship and imparting legal assistance to the relatives of the victims, especially those involved in cases of forced disappearance.
From 2000 to 2021, Horacio Verbitsky was president of the organization, he was also part of the board of directors of the Latin American division of the Human Rights Watch.