The Covid-19 pandemic had an indisputable negative impact on human rights worldwide. The prolonged lockdowns marked a turning point for humanity. Unfortunately, shortly after exiting the Covid-19 nightmare, there is still a clear disregard of the pandemic's harmful effects. The return to normality, ushered in by vaccines, has led to a collective amnesia of the profound inequalities that the pandemic laid bare.

During the first months of the pandemic, hospital facilities, nursing homes, prisons and educational institutions were the focus of attention. Despite this, the tragedy exacerbated society's individualistic model, in which “everyone saves themselves”. In this model, the focus on rights tends to be a matter of niche interest or to be relevant solely for countries with advanced development, which can devote effort to this task. At the same time, and without empirical basis, our economic model insists that social rights have a high cost that must be carefully weighed; as if safeguarding civil and political rights were not as costly.

In this context, in an effort not to forget the pandemic's impact on the world and to highlight its effects on historically discriminated groups, the book that I present here acquires a fundamental relevance. Covid-19 will mark this generation, and changes are expected both in terms of our own understanding of social relations and wider societal dimensions – one of which is the economic.

From Chile's perspective, this takes on special significance given the current constitutional discussion. In October 2019 social protests spread throughout the country in response to an accumulated antipathy towards the economic model installed by force during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. This model, promoted by the “Chicago Boys” and with Chile as a testing ground, has been in crisis as a result of a series of events that led to citizen protest.

Today Chile awaits a new constitution, after the first proposal was rejected by the vast majority of the population in a referendum in September 2022. Paradoxically, this first proposal placed, at its heart, the guarantee of social rights through a social rule of law instead of a subsidiary state.