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In late July, Prof Cath Collins was in Argentina and Uruguay as part of her current Open Society Foundation funded project supporting responses to enforced disappearance in Latin America.  On 24 July 2019, she presented at Uruguay´s national Memory and Human Rights museum, discussing alternative models of search from around Latin America. She was joined by Chilean colleague Dr Pietro Sferrazza, and by forensic archaeologist Dr Jose Lopez Mazz, founder of Uruguay´s specialist forensic team for identification of the disappeared. She also held meetings and interviews with human rights organisations, relatives, and government officials involved in discussions about the future direction of Uruguay’s efforts to locate close to 200 people who were forcibly disappeared during the 1973-1985 dictatorship.

In early September, Prof Collins will return to Uruguay to lead an exchange between Chilean and Uruguayan human rights lawyers. The workshop will discuss litigation strategies and common obstacles in efforts to bring justice for the crimes of the Plan Condor state terror network that operated across South America in the 1970s and 1980s.