David Cozac's blog

It is no easy task to give an overview of the human rights related sessions at the AIDS conference today. There were more than 30 such sessions, starting for 7 am and running until late in the evening. These sessions covered numerous different topics such as drug use and policy, women’s rights, MSM, HIV testing, indigenous populations, discrimination and stigma, prevention, travel restrictions, sex work, prisons, intellectual property and treatment, and criminalization. All this reflects just how central human rights are to the response to HIV.

There is one theme that really jumped out from today’s sessions: the fact that many human rights problems are related to the failure of governments to base HIV policies in scientific evidence. The title of one of today’s sessions aptly summarized this theme: “Research-based public policy: Why is it not the gold standard?”
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Background

For the first time at an International AIDS Conference, an entire networking zone is dedicated to human rights dimensions of the epidemic.  A collaborative effort of 24 organizations from around the world, the zone is sponsored by the Open Society Institute Public Health Program, the Levi Strauss Foundation, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Under the over-arching theme “Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever!”, throughout the week the Networking Zone plays host to a rich program of activities in English and Spanish, including:
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