Argentina

• The National Constitution, which also gives constitutional rank to certain human-rights treaties
• The Civil and Commercial Code (2015), the Penal Code and other national codes
• Provincial laws, for matters that belong to the provinces
• Court decisions and scholarly writing, which are persuasive

• The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation at the top
• National and federal courts of appeal and first-instance courts
• Provincial courts, which apply the national codes in most everyday cases

A law degree (abogado), then registration with the bar association (colegio de abogados) of a province or of the city of Buenos Aires.

• Any judge can refuse to apply a law that conflicts with the Constitution in the case before them, and the Supreme Court has the last word.
• Private and commercial law are united in one Code, unlike in France, where there is a separate Commercial Code.
• Argentina's provinces keep their own courts and procedure rules.
• The Constitution of 1853 was inspired partly by the US Constitution, though the private law is civil law.

Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, France

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Argentina as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso.

• Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (Argentina)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.