UN Human Rights Bodies
When Rights and Humanity first started our AIDS programme, HIV/AIDS was perceived solely as a health issue. Whilst we were introducing a concern for human rights into the AIDS work of the World Health Organisation, we simultaneously introduced a concern for HIV/AIDS into the UN human rights bodies. In effect we acted as an “interpreter” between the public health and human rights communities.
In the early 1990s, Rights and Humanity drafted a number of speeches for WHO to present to the UN Human Rights Commission and its Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Together with WHO, we held a series of seminars for governmental and non-governmental delegates to the Commission on Human Rights and for the expert members of the Sub-Commission. We explained the scientific knowledge about the pandemic and emphasised the human rights implications.
Rights and Humanity has continuously drawn attention to the nexus between pre-existing violations of human rights and vulnerability to the risk of HIV/AIDS. In our UN briefings we explained that disadvantaged indigenous peoples, minorities and others who are denied equal enjoyment of their human rights to an adequate standard of living, education and information, remunerated work, and access to health care, are at particular risk of HIV infection. We argued that securing equality and non-discrimination is an essential AIDS prevention strategy.
UN Treaty Bodies
In 1994, Rights and Humanity prepared a strategy for WHO’s Global Programme on AIDS on promoting the engagement of the UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies and other human rights organs.
We provided special briefing sessions on AIDS for the treaty-bodies in order to encourage them to play a more active role in ensuring respect for human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS. These included briefings sessions for the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. (See > Children’s Rights and AIDS.)