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This roundtable brings together lawyers and academics to reflect on the 50th anniversary of the official founding meeting of Operation Condor. Set up in November 1975 by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, this transnational terror network facilitated the persecution of political dissidents in South America and beyond, with a legacy of 800+ victims. The discussion will focus on recent developments in the investigations on Operation Condor, including judicial proceedings and the use of digital technologies to democratise access to information.
Speakers:
Karinna Fernández Neira, lawyer in the Chilean Operation Condor trials and human rights defender
Professor Philippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals, UCL
Dr Sebastián Smart, Senior Research Fellow, ARU
Dr Francesca Lessa, Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas, UCL (chair)
Speakers' biographies:
Karinna Fernández Neira is a leading Chilean lawyer and human rights defender. She has a wealth of experience litigating cases relating to the Chilean dictatorship, contemporary human rights violations, and corruption before Chilean courts, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Professor Philippe Sands (UCL) is the author of 38 Londres Street - On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025) and East West Street (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016). He represented Human Rights Watch in the landmark proceedings against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet following his arrest in London in 1998.
Dr Sebastián Smart (ARU) is a Chilean lawyer who has worked in academia, NGOs, and the Chilean National Human Rights Institution on state violence, memory, and accountability. He has also collaborated with various regional and international organisations. He is the editor of Business, Human Rights, Technology, and Transitional Justice in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).
Dr Francesca Lessa (UCL) is the author of The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America (Yale University Press, 2022) and Plan Cóndor: Viejos secretos y nuevos hallazgos (Reservoir Books, 2025, 2nd edition) with Sebastián Santana Camargo. She is the coordinator of the Plancondor.org Project at UCL.
This event is co-sponsored by the Recent History and Memory Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and the Plancondor.org Project.
