July 2003

Human Rights Linked to HIV/AIDS

In March Peter Piot, executive director of unaids, told the 59th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights that human rights must be used “as a platform to increase the effectiveness of AIDS responses.” Piot discussed three basic rights: the rights of the child, which should require that governments and world bodies be held accountable for the monitoring of AIDS-related children’s rights; the right to health, which includes the right to treatment—one of the “keys to creating a more just world”; and the right to freedom of opinion, which Piot called integral to effective AIDS prevention and education campaigns. He concluded, “AIDS is everywhere, and one of our foremost weapons in defeating it is to ensure that human rights, too, are a reality everywhere.”