Legal Aspects of HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Policy and Law Reform

Abstract:     
This book provides a wide-ranging assessment of laws and policies that impact HIV and AIDS. It shows how laws and regulations can either underpin or undermine good public health programs and responsible personal behaviors. Spanning 65 distinct legal topics, the authors demonstrate the scope and breadth of laws through a comparative law analysis. The book begins with a long section on public health laws, covering efforts to track the spread of the disease through testing and screening for HIV infections and AIDS; to deter transmission through prevention, prophylaxis, and partner notification; and to assist those infected through treatment. Next the authors address legal protection against discrimination across multiple areas of society including work, education, and health services. Subsequent chapters cover a variety of relevant topics including disclosure of HIV status, clinical research, access to information, and access to medicines. The legal issues facing several at-risk populations are specifically addressed in discrete chapters on women, children, men who have sex with men, sex workers, and injecting drug users.

The Guide is intended to be of practical use for legal reform to support effective action against HIV/AIDS. We seek to alert those working on AIDS strategies and projects to opportunities for legal and policy reform and to provide them with tools to tackle the job effectively. To achieve this, we adopted the following format for each topic: first, we identify the specific issue or issues raised by the topic, and we follow that with a discussion of the pertinent legal and policy considerations. Then we give at least one good practice example (often providing actual statutory language), and follow that up with a list of key references.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 250

working papers series