Michaela Clayton is the director of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a regional partnership of civil society organizations working together to promote a human rights based response to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Southern Africa, and she is the recipient of this year's International Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. The Award for Action was established in 2002 by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch, to recognize outstanding individuals and organizations that protect the rights and dignity of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Clayton is a human rights lawyer who has worked on HIV/AIDS and human rights issues in Namibia, and subsequently regionally and internationally since 1989. Among many accomplishments in her more than 15 years of dedication to protecting the rights of vulnerable populations, Clayton has been counsel in successful impact litigation on HIV, has been a member of a number of UNAIDS expert consultations on HIV and human rights-related issues, and has consulted for UNAIDS, UNHCHR and the ILO.

In 2002 she initiated the establishment of ARASA, which, under her leadership, has grown to include partners in all of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. Clayton serves on several regional advisory bodies including the SADC Technical Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS and she is also a member of the UNAIDS Reference Group on Human Rights. Clayton holds a BA LLB (1985) from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Joseph Amon, the director of Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch based in New York, joined the organization in 2005 as head of its HIV/AIDS program, having worked for more than 15 years conducting research, designing programs, and evaluating interventions related to HIV, hepatitis, malaria and guinea worm eradication, for the CDC, USAID-funded projects, the Carter Center, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Since coming to HRW, Amon has worked on a wide range of issues including access to medicines (including antiretroviral, drug dependency, and pain relief treatment), HIV testing, the rights of prisoners and migrants to access health care, unproven AIDS "cures," and human rights abuses associated with infectious disease outbreaks and multi-drug resistant Amon has a master's degree in tropical medicine and a PhD in epidemiology.

Director, Law and Health Initiative
Public Health Program

Jonathan Cohen is project director of the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI), a division of the Open Society Institute Public Health Program. Launched in 2005, LAHI supports a range of legal assistance, litigation, and law reform efforts to advance public health goals worldwide.

From 2002-2006, Cohen was a researcher with the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, where he conducted numerous investigations of rights violations linked to the AIDS epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and North America. A Canadian lawyer, Cohen served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001 and was co-editor-in-chief of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review. He has degrees from Yale College, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.