Editor's Choice Ep. 4: 'The Condor Trials' w/ Francesca Lessa

International relations scholar Francesca Lessa joins us to discuss her book  The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America, (Yale University Press 2022). Through the voices of survivors and witnesses, human rights activists, judicial actors, journalists, and historians, The Condor Trials unravels the secrets of transnational repression masterminded by South American dictators between 1969 and 1981. Under Operation Condor, their violent and oppressive regimes kidnapped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of exiles, or forcibly returned them to the countries from which they had fled. South America became a zone of terror for those who were targeted, and of impunity for those who perpetuated the violence. Based on extensive fieldwork, archival research, trial ethnography, and over one hundred interviews, The Condor Trials explores South America's past and present and sheds light on ongoing struggles for justice as its societies come to terms with the unparalleled atrocities of their not-so-distant pasts.

Dr Francesca Lessa is an Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas in the Institute of the Americas at University of College London, and holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining the faculty at University of College of London, between 2011 and 2023, Dr. Lessa held various roles at the University of Oxford, including Departmental Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Development (2020-2023). Her latest book, The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America, was the winner of the 2023 Juan Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America and received an honourable mention for the 2023 Bryce Wood Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

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