Transnational Human Rights, Justice, and Repression in Latin America

She is an Editor at Brasiliana - Journal for Brazilian Studies, Treasurer of ABRE (Associação de Brasilianistas na Europa), and member of the Radical Americas. She is also an affiliate of King’s Brazil Institute and a member of the King’s Observatorium on Democracy in Latin America (KODLA).She is publishing a book titled Brazil and the Transnational Human Rights Movement 1964-1985 (Anthem, 2022), which looks at how Brazilian concepts, ideas, and practices shaped the global human rights movement of the 1970s. Her research also examines the related topics of liberation theology, pedagogy of the oppressed, and indigenous rights. 

Her research specialises in human rights in Latin America, focusing on accountability for past and present instances of human rights violations and the politics behind these processes, which encompass state, regional, and international actors as well as civil society activists. Lessa has published extensively on these topics and others relating to impunity and memory in Latin America, in top-journals including Human Rights Quarterly and The Journal of Latin American Studies. Her first book, Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay: Against Impunity was published in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Latin American Studies Association “Best Recent History and Memory Book Contest.” Her most recent book is The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America (Yale University Press, 2022).