OSLO DECLARATION ON HIV CRIMINALISATION

International

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Current reviews indicate that 41 countries – 20 per cent of the countries in the world – have laws under which HIV transmission or exposure has been prosecuted using either general criminal or public health laws or HIV specific legislation. This includes 21 countries in Europe, 9 in Asia, 4 in Africa, 3 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2 in Oceania and 2 in North America. Further research is needed to uncover more details and consolidate precise numbers.

Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court, South Africa

Today, one of the most serious issues in the AIDS epidemic is the use of criminal statutes and criminal prosecutions against HIV transmission. Such laws are increasingly wide in their application, and frightening in their effects. They aggressively attack rational efforts to lessen the impact and spread of the epidemic and are creating a crisis in HIV management and prevention efforts.

So what lies behind this increasing trend of criminalization? What is the rationale for such laws?

Susan Timberlake, Human Rights Advisor, UNAIDS

This case study highlights how laws that criminalize HIV transmission or exposure – even though they may have been conceived to protect women and girls – can in fact place them at greater risk of prosecution and exacerbate their vulnerability to HIV, violence and marginalization.

Richard Pearshouse, Director, Research & Policy, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

Since 2005, an epidemic of HIV laws has swept Africa. National legislators often feel a strong impulse to ‘do something’ in response to the epidemic. The issue of HIV legislation is inherently sensitive – far too often it has lead to simplistic laws driven by prejudice rather than evidence. Momentum to legislate HIV appears to be increasing, rather than slowing. It’s vitally important to resist this simplistic urge to legislate.

Matthew Weait, Professor of Law and Policy and Pro-Vice-Master for Academic Partnerships, Birkbeck College, University of London

Criminal law is the most powerful mechanism a society has for expressing collective disapproval of a person’s conduct and typically results in the imposition of punishment – whether that be a monetary penalty or imprisonment.

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