Opposes laws that base criminal liability and/or penalty on HIV status, rather than intent to harm. Argues that focus on knowledge of status as a key element of an HIV-related crime rather than intent and capacity to transmit the virus, is a classic example of an inadequate mens rea (or criminal intent) requirement and overly expansive criminalization.
Arguing from a feminist perspective, this article contends that non-disclosure of HIV status to one’s sexual partner should not vitiate consent to sexual activity. Considers the gendered effect of lying, and how HIV status intersects with the power imbalance at the root of sexual assault. Discusses the tension between the need for women to protect both their medical information and their sexual integrity. Also considers the role of stigma in preventing disclosure.
Found uneven application of HIV criminalization laws in the state of Michigan, with black men and white women having a comparatively greater risk of conviction than white men or black women. White women had the highest conviction rate of any group analysed, suggesting they may face a particular burden under these laws. Many of the white women convicted were especially disadvantaged by issues such as poor mental health, substance abuse and homelessness.
Detailed information and analyses of HIV-specific legislation in seven Central and West African countries from a human rights perspective. Provides commentary on N’Djamena model legislation on HIV/AIDS (2004).
Analyses key provisions in HIV-specific laws, outlining both protective and punitive provisions including criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission. Argues these provisions are generally overly broad, disregarding the best available recommendations for legislating on HIV; failing the human rights test of necessity, proportionality and reasonableness; consecrating myths and prejudice; and undermining HIV responses.
Analyses punitive laws and policies undermining the effective delivery of services to PLHIV and those at risk of HIV infection. Flags laws and policies that violate Constitutional rights. Sets out an advocacy agenda for policy and legislative reform and improvement of law enforcement practices and community understanding of criminalisation issues.
Overview of the Kenya High Court’s ground-breaking decision that some terms in the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act were too broadly defined and that Act contravened Kenya’s constitution.
Highlights significant findings about Californian criminal law including that more than 800 people have come in contact with California’s criminal system based on their HIV status, with 93% of convictions requiring no proof of conduct likely to transmit HIV. Also finds HIV criminal statutes are disparately enforced based on race/ethnicity, sexuality and gender.
This paper was commissioned by the UNAIDS Secretariat to serve as a background paper for the Expert Meeting on Criminalisation of HIV Non-Disclosure, Exposure and Transmission, 31 August – 2 September 2011, Geneva, Switzerland.
Provides an overall understanding of the enforcement of HIV criminalization laws in Florida and assesses any preliminary findings indicating disparities between subpopulations. Preliminary analyses found that there is evidence of disparities in enforcement of HIV criminalization laws related to geography, race/ethnicity, sex at birth, or sex worker (or suspected sex worker) status and underlying related offenses.
Analyses how HIV criminalisation laws in Georgia have been utilised and assesses preliminary findings on disparities between sub-populations. Found that there might be disparities in enforcement of HIV Criminalisation laws related to geography, race/ethnicity, sex at birth or sex worker (or suspected sex worker) status.
This paper was commissioned by the UNAIDS Secretariat to serve as a background paper for the Expert Meeting on Criminalisation of HIV Non-Disclosure, Exposure and Transmission, 31 August – 2 September 2011, Geneva, Switzerland. It synthesises general considerations concerning issues raised by the application of the criminal law to non-disclosure, exposure or transmission in relation to HIV Scientific, Medical, Legal and Human Rights Issues.
Audit, led by Sally Cameron, HIV Justice Network’s Senior Policy Analyst, on behalf of HJN and the National Association of People with HIV Australia (NAPWHA) revealing that mandatory testing laws are at odds with national HIV testing policy and are operating outside the structured and highly successful HIV responses managed by clinicians and departments of health. The audit found that in many instances, the laws, their implementation, and monitoring include numerous structural failures, usually occurring in multiple states.
This assessment ‘Legal Assessment of the Effectiveness of HIV Criminalisation Laws-from High to Low-Income Countries’ demonstrates why the enactment of an HIV-specific criminal law in Jamaica would be harmful to the national HIV response. It sets out the bases on which the recommendation for an HIV-specific criminal law should be rejected and highlights the need for public health policy considerations to centre the discussions surrounding HIV criminalisation in Jamaica.
This an English Summary of the book “A Litigation Guide on Crimes of Sex Working and Homosexuality (Prostitution and Debauchery) “. The book aims to provide a litigation guide and a legal overview of principles and procedures to legal advocates and whoever wishes to know more about “prostitution” or “debauchery” crimes under Egyptian law.
This article articulates how the threat of prosecution of mothers living with HIV who expose or transfer the virus to their foetuses or newborn will discourage and scare women away from seeking proper medical treatment instead of encouraging HIV treatment and prevention. It also explores how HIV-specific criminal transmission laws in the United States could hamper and stifle the progress in prevention and treatment of vertical transmission. It concludes by proposing a model for change in addressing these HIV-specific criminal transmission statutes.
This seminar series1 addressed a series of questions and brought together experts from a range of disciplines to answer them. This document summarises the arguments of each of the papers presented over the course of this seminar series, gives details of outputs connected to it, and also provides information on how and by whom we anticipate findings being used.
Williams Institute analysis of data from the state of Tennessee about individuals who were convicted of an HIV crime and placed on the state’s sex offender registry (SOR). In addition to the registry data, the report also analyses detailed data from 77 case files of those on Tennessee’s SOR who resided and were prosecuted in Shelby County, home of Memphis.
This Note explains the risk of HIV transmission associated with certain behaviours, lays out variations in HIV-specific criminal laws, and examines how those laws are applied. It also examines the courts’ reasoning in Rhoades and Hogg as well as analyzes the legal and policy problems that these laws create, the challenges to amending or repealing the laws.
In this study, the authors place the criminalisation of women with HIV for breastfeeding within the context of current medical recommendations and cultural views of breastfeeding. They review the criminal cases against women living with HIV for breastfeeding around the globe, examine the injustice of these prosecutions, and provide recommendations for decriminalisation.
Interactive tool looking at the impact of HIV criminal laws on people living with HIV in nine US states: California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia.
Following recent reports of blood donation-related prosecutions in Russia, Singapore, and the United States, the HIV Justice Network undertook desk-based research, collating and categorising all known country and jurisdictional laws that specifically criminalise blood donations by people living with HIV, and known prosecutions under these laws. We analysed these laws and cases using a global policy guidance and human rights law framework, informed by international and state-level scientific data assessing risks of transmission via blood transfusion.
On 8th November 2022 the Constitutional Court of Uganda handed down a decision that has been perceived as contrary to addressing inequalities and helping to end AIDS, as the provisions of the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act, 2015 that were being challenged in the petition, perceived as discriminatory, criminalising HIV/AIDS transmission, among others, were maintained by the Court as being constitutional. ULS LEGAL INSIGHT analyses this petition and its implications on the global approaches to fight against criminalisation of HIV/AIDS transmission.
This assessment tool is designed to help individuals and organizations, including state and local health departments, to assess the extent to which a jurisdiction’s laws and regulations impede HIV surveillance, facilitate privacy breaches, or criminalize HIV infection and related risk behaviors.
This brief has been prepared for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working on HIV and human rights in Angola, to contribute to discussions around criminalisation of HIV in the country. It sets out concerns regarding the criminalisation of HIV transmission, exposure and non-disclosure in general, based on compelling scientific developments and the position of international human rights and public health experts. It further examines the relevant laws and their application in Angola, provides alternatives to criminalisation and concludes with specific recommendations regarding the reform of such laws in the country.
This brief is also available in Portuguese.
In this brochure, CSOs in support of the Marriages Bill explain what the Section 79 of the Criminal Law currently say and why it is over broad and open to unjust application.
In this brochure, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and HIV Justice Worldwide explain why the section 79 of the Criminal Code violates the rights of people living with HIV and is a barrier to HIV prevention and care.
Using data obtained from the Arkansas Crime Information Center and the Information Network of Arkansas, this study examines the enforcement of HIV criminalization laws in Arkansas since 1989. It found that HIV-related crimes in Arkansas are disproportionately enforced based on race and sex and impact Black men the most.
Indiana has six laws that criminalize people living with HIV, spanning both the public health and criminal codes. This study evaluates whether these laws reflect current understandings of HIV science and criminalize conduct that poses negligible or no risk of transmitting HIV.
The Williams Institute researchers analyzed California Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) data on HIV offenses in California to explore the demographics and experiences of foreign born individuals as compared to their U.S. born counterparts. While only 30% of immigrants in this data set had immigration proceedings recorded in their criminal history, among them, one in four had those proceedings initiated after and HIV-specific incident. This emphasizes the impact that HIV criminalization can have on the lives of noncitizen immigrants above and beyond the impact on their citizen peers.
Using data obtained from the Maryland State Administrative Office of the Courts, this study from The Williams Institute examines the enforcement of HIV criminalization laws in Maryland.
Highlights:
The Williams Institute analyzed data from the state of Mississippi about individuals arrested for an allegation of an HIV-related offense under Section 92-27-14 of the Mississippi Criminal Code. The study revealed at least 43 people arrested between 2004 and 2021.
Equality Ohio Education Fund (EOEF) and the Ohio Health Modernization Movement (OHMM) collaborated for over three years to for the first time gather data across all 88 counties in Ohio about the use of HIV Criminalisation laws and the consequences of HIV criminalization across Ohio. This effort, which is the first of its kind in Ohio, catalogs the criminal cases charged in Ohio from 2014-2020 under any of Ohio’s six statutes that criminalize or create penalty enhancements for people living with HIV.
The purpose of this paper is to report on a recent case of HIV criminalisation that occurred in August 2022, in the province of San Luis, Argentina, where a woman with HIV was criminalised for accessing her right to choose how to exclusively breastfeed her baby.
Please note this is a DEEPL translation of the Spanish report.
Part I includes summaries of precedential human rights rulings from across the continent, ranging from the right to health to equality, civic rights, criminal justice, and environmental rights.
Part II provides key excerpts from cases showing the care and diligence judges in the region have applied in their reasoning. The excerpts are indicative of constitutional interpretation that respects the universality of human rights in a context where States are trying to step away from the shackles of colonial laws and policing practices.
This is an audit of Australian laws and policies undermining the goals and key areas of action of the National HIV Strategy. This audit deals mainly with three topics, which have a substantial and adverse impact on persons with HIV as well as other marginalised communities and the broader Australian population. These laws: criminalise HIV transmission, exposure and the failure to disclose HIV status to a sexual partner; define consent in a way that exposes people with HIV to criminalisation; and enable Mandatory Disease Testing (MDT) that adversely impacts people with HIV. For each of these topics, this audit: sets out the relevant laws of each state and territory in Australia; notes the key issues in the area; and outlines suggestions on law reform options.
