Hiv Criminalization’s Origins, Enforcement, and Social Impacts

Abstract

This article aims to raise awareness and stimulate serious discussion about the ineffectiveness of HIV criminalization and its impact on human rights and public health and to propose improvements in criminal law regulation. The study is based on the empirical and analytical data of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the World Health Organization, legal acts, drafts legal acts, legal practice, and statistics of Ukraine, legal acts of the USA, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. In total, 21 laws, drafts of laws, other documents, and 26 court decisions were analyzed. Dialectical, comparative, analytical, synthetic, systemic, sociological, induction, and deduction research methods were applied. The criminalization of HIV stems from a lack of awareness among policymakers and society about advances in medical science and ways to control the epidemic. Such regulation is ineffective, leads to stigmatization of people living with HIV, and has a negative impact on the epidemic. Causing harm to a person’s health by intentionally infecting a person with a severe infectious disease could be criminalized under the general norm on bodily harm, excluding the stigmatization of patients with certain nosologies.