Cath Collins

Cath Collins (2017) is a social justice activist, human rights professional and sometime academic. Born in the north of England, she has spent almost two decades in Latin America, after being drawn to the region’s truth and justice struggles in the aftermath of dictatorships and Cold War counterinsurgency violence. She spent time in Brazil, Bolivia and Chile as a grassroots community worker, prison visitor and HIV educator, before the 1998 arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet prompted her to focus on the question of justice for past atrocities.  Her first book, “Post-Transitional Justice: Human Rights Prosecutions in Chile and El Salvador” tracked the ‘Pinochet Effect’ from Santiago to San Salvador, New York, Madrid and London.

Collins’ work at the Carey Institute will focus on her book about Latin America’s ‘justice entrepreneurs’: the brave, principled men and women who once faced down dictators and now provide an object lesson to the world in constancy, quiet commitment and the transfer of moral imperatives to a new generation. Uniquely, this book will tell the inside story of justice through the eyes of its co-creators.