Unsafe law: health, rights and the legal response to HIV

Abstract

This paper describes the ways in which, over the past three decades, law has come to serve as an obstacle in the fight against HIV, and how it contributes to the stigmatisation of, and discrimination against, people living with the virus. It argues that in order to make unsafe law safer, policy-makers, legislators and those responsible for the interpretation and enforcement of law must base their HIV response not on populist morality but on the strong evidence base provided by three decades of clinical, scientific and social research. Drawing on that research and the author's own involvement in policy development in this area, it suggests that rights-based arguments are, while important, insufficient as the basis for delivering the changes that are necessary, discusses the difficulties involved in achieving those changes, and argues that legal scholarship and research has an important role to play in HIV activism and combating the global epidemic.

Doing Sexual Responsibility: HIV, Risk Discourses, Trust, and Gay Men Interacting Online

“…Thirty-three states have at least one HIV-specific criminal law, and in 24 states a person who is aware of being HIV-positive must disclose this status to one's sexual partner(s) (Lehman et al 2014). These laws continue the stigmatization against HIV-positive people (Adam et al 2015;Bourne et al 2009;Weait 2013), and this criminalizing status can make HIV-positive men ridden with more anxiety when navigating their sexual lives and relationships (Bourne et al 2009). In effect, these moralizing health and legal discourses function as boundary work, whereby groups and attitudes about groups are divided based on established differences and similarities (Gerson and Peiss 1985).…”

Socially Constructed Determinants of Health: The Case for Synergies to Arrive at Gendered Global Health Law

“…Such progress is underpinned by a clear recognition of the gender inequalities suffered by women as a result of structural, including legal, drivers of inequality. Similarly, the HIV field has a long and rich history of the use of law to promote and protect the rights of people living with HIV and people affected by HIV who are subject to discrimination on their grounds of their gender identity (see, for example, Hunter, 1995 andWeait, 2013).…”

Keeping confidence: HIV and the criminal law from HIV service providers’ perspectives

“…This trend is most noticeable in high-income countries with concentrated HIV epidemics in Western Europe and North America, while over 20 African countries introduced HIV-specific laws criminalising HIV exposure and transmission in the decade to 2010 (Cameron & Reynolds, 2010 ). Existing social research offers insight into the overarching public health impact of criminalisation 1 on those who are most likely to be involved in HIV transmission and exposure (Adam, Elliott, Corriveau, Travers, & English, 2012 ; Burris, Beletsky, Burleson, Case, & Lazzarini, 2007 ; Dodds, Bourne, & Weait, 2009 ; Dodds & Keogh, 2006 ; Dodds, Weatherburn et al, 2009 ; Galletly & Dickson-Gomez, 2009 ; Horvath, Weinmeyer, & Rosser, 2010 ; Mykhalovskiy, Betteridge, & McLay, 2010 ; UNAIDS, 2013 ; Weait, 2013 ). This body of work demonstrates that criminalisation has a limited capacity to support HIV precautionary behaviour, such as enabling people to use condoms or disclose their HIV status to a sexual partner, and on balance is likely to have a negative impact on public health goals.…”