Law and Health at the 2006 International AIDS Conference

OSI's Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) sponsored a series of events and publications to promote human rights and legal issues at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada.

• A Law and Health Initiative publication, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever, outlined ten reasons why human rights protections such as gender equality and due process in the criminal justice system should occupy the center of the global AIDS struggle.
• In collaboration with the Open Society Justice Initiative, LAHI sponsored clinical legal teachers from Mozambique, Thailand, and Ukraine to participate in the conference and learn about how to integrate an HIV/AIDS component into their university law clinics.
• LAHI also supported the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network to host a satellite meeting on global networking in HIV/AIDS, law and human rights. The one-day satellite meeting convened HIV/AIDS and human rights experts from around the world to discuss the possibility of formalizing a global network for information sharing, technical assistance, and joint advocacy.
• LAHI Director Jonathan Cohen spoke on two abstract-driven panels at the conference, one on abstinence-until-marriage programs in Uganda and the other on access to education for AIDS-affected children in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa.