The HIV Legal Network is one of the world’s leading organizations tackling the legal and human rights issues related to HIV, and advocating at both the policy and community levels. The Network works tirelessly to defend the rights of people affected by HIV, from women, newcomers, and gay men, to people in prison, people who use drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men.

La Red Jurídica sobre el VIH es una de las principales organizaciones del mundo que se ocupa de las cuestiones jurídicas y de derechos humanos relacionadas con el VIH, y aboga tanto a nivel político como comunitario. La Red trabaja incansablemente para defender los derechos de las personas afectadas por el VIH, desde las mujeres, los recién llegados y los hombres homosexuales, hasta las personas en prisión, las personas usuarias de drogas, las trabajadoras del sexo y los hombres que tienen relaciones sexuales con hombres.

Le Réseau juridique sur le VIH est l'une des principales organisations au monde à s'attaquer aux problèmes juridiques et de droits de l'homme liés au VIH, et à plaider tant au niveau politique que communautaire. Le réseau travaille sans relâche pour défendre les droits des personnes affectées par le VIH, qu'il s'agisse de femmes, de nouveaux arrivants, d'hommes homosexuels, de personnes en prison, de personnes usagères de drogues, de travailleurs du sexe ou d'hommes ayant des rapports sexuels avec des hommes.

HIV/AIDS Legal Network

Featuring interviews with our policy analysts along with people working farther afield, Not a Crime will highlight the impact of criminalization on people living with HIV and people who use drugs over the coming months.

In the premiere English language episode, HIV Legal Network policy analyst India Annamanthadoo talks to senior policy analyst Mikhail Golichenko about drug policy in Russia and the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. Learn more about how repressive laws and policies in the region frustrate the response to HIV and undermine the human rights of people who use drugs, and how advocates there and around the world are mobilizing for change.

Our first French episode, also released today, features HIV Legal Network senior policy analyst Cécile Kazatchkine in conversation with Modeste Mambo Amisi, epidemiologist and executive director of HODSAS, about how he came to be an activist for HIV and human rights and how the laws in the Democratic Republic of Congo affect non-disclosure.

Stay tuned for future English episodes as we delve deeper into HIV criminalization to examine how criminal laws target communities at the margin, while our next French episode takes us to Morocco for a conversation with Moulay Ahmed Douraidi, a well-known activist, about HIV non-disclosure in a country that doesn’t have specific laws governing disclosure and how people living with HIV are targeted all the same.

Listen to an introduction from HIV Legal Network Executive Director Janet Butler-McPhee.

Podcast: Not a crime

The HIV Legal Network is hosting its 10th Symposium on HIV, Law, and Human Rights! Join us 

HIV Criminalization: Challenging Injustice in Canada and Around the World.

 This virtual event will bring together people living with HIV, policymakers, legal and health professionals, along with activists and allies for a discussion about HIV and human rights.

Together, we will explore the evolution of the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure in Canada and trends in prosecutions, including disproportionate impacts on Black and Indigenous people; litigation related to condom use, HIV, and sexual assault law; and global movements and advocacy to limit HIV criminalization around the world.

This event will be free of charge for all attendees. The complete speaker list and agenda will be shared as soon as it is finalized. 

Moderator & state of the law: Richard Elliott

Key trends report – Colin Hastings (Concordia University) and Notisha Massaquoi (University of Toronto)

Sex offender registration research – Liam Michaud (York University)

CCRHC consultations and update – India Annamanthadoo (HIV Legal Network) and Léa Pelletier-Marcotte (COCQ-SIDA)

Moderator: Shakir Rahim, lawyer and Legal Network board member

 between Khalid Janmohamed (Director, Legal Clinic Programs at Lincoln Alexander School of Law, X University, former litigation director at HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario) and Isabel Grant (Professor and Associate Dean, Academic Affairs, Peter Allard School of Law, UBC)

HIV Justice Worldwide – global movements to limit HIV criminalization

Moderator: Edwin Bernard, HIV Justice Network

Screen short video on molecular HIV surveillance

Cécile Kazatchkine (HIV Legal Network) – work in francophone Africa and beyond

Mikhail Golichenko (HIV Legal Network) – work in EECA

Q&A with the participation of Alex McClelland (Carleton University)

Production of this event has been made possible through a financial contribution from the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

You can read about our most recent symposia here and here.

10th Symposium on HIV, Law, and Human Rights - HIV criminalization: Challenging injustice in Canada and around the world

Punitive drug laws and policies purported to deter drug use have failed — and worse, they have donecatastrophic harm. They have fueled deadly stigma; epidemics of preventable illness and death; poverty;homelessness; and widespread, systematic, and egregious violations of human rights. They are rooted in,and have reinforced, sexism, racism, and colonialism. They have destroyed lives, torn families apart, andundermined communities’ well-being and safety. They have wasted inordinate sums of public money tocause terrible damage.

Recognizing the many lives that have been lost and ruined to the state-sanctioned “war on drugs,” we mustact to end the harm. We must stop stigmatizing drug use and pointlessly punishing people who use drugs.We must expand harm reduction programs; ensure access to non-coercive, evidence-informed treatmentand supports; scale up safe supply measures; and ensure that policies, programs, and services protect andpromote health and socio-economic wellbeing. At the heart of these reforms must be efforts focused onreducing poverty; ensuring access to housing; and combatting violence, sexism, racism, discrimination, andimplementing the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and the Calls to Justicein the report of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, and other commitments.

Decriminalizing personal drug possession and necessity trafficking are fundamental, necessary stepstowards a more rational and just drug policy, and away from our current anti-drug policies. It is a changethat is long overdue.

We call on the Government of Canada to adopt an anti-racist, anti-colonial, human rights–based approach to drug policy that does not rely on criminal, administrative, and medical interventions that maintain the goal of dissuading drug use, and under which people who use drugs continue to be oppressed, coerced, and silenced. Among other measures, our proposed drug policy includes:

1. Fully decriminalizing all drug possession for personal use, as well as the sharing or selling of drugs for subsistence, to support personal drug use costs, or to provide a safe supply. This requires the removal of criminal sanctions and all other penalties (administrative or otherwise) as follows:

A full repeal of section 4 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and section 8 of the Cannabis Act;

Amendments to section 5 of the CDSA, which criminalizes trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking, to permit the sharing and selling of drugs for subsistence, to support personal drug use costs, and to provide a safe supply (i.e. “necessity trafficking”);

Removal of all sanctions and interventions associated with simple drug possession, or with necessity trafficking, including:
▷ administrative penalties, including but not limited to fines, “health assessments,” or dissuasion commissions;
▷ confiscation of substances, paraphernalia, or medical supplies;
▷ geographic, drug use, or personal contact restrictions or curfews;
▷ drug treatment courts as a coercive alternative to criminal sanctions; and
▷ other coerced or involuntary treatment or other health interventions.

Automatic expungement of previous convictions for simple drug possession (including for cannabis) and an applications-based expungement process for necessity trafficking, as well as expungement of previous convictions for breaches of police undertakings, bail, probation, or parole conditions associated with charges for these acts;

Clear rules and strict limitations relating to when police can stop, search, and investigate a person for drug possession; and

Removal of police and other law enforcement as “gatekeepers” or “liaisons” between people who use drugs and health and social services, to be replaced by organizations led by people who use(d) drugs or skilled and trained frontline workers.

2. Redistributing resources from the enforcement of these harmful drug laws to non-coercive, voluntary policies, programs, and services that protect and promote people’s health and human rights, including health, education, housing, and social services that support people who use drugs, have been released from prison or are incarcerated due to conviction for drug-related offences, and promote the safety and well-being of communities.

Decriminalization done right: A rights-based path for drug policy

To: Ms Ghada Waly, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Subject: Open letter on UNODC statement on International Human Rights Day 2021

We urge you to mark International Human Rights Day 2021 by calling on Member States to change drug policies and practices that violate human rights and perpetuate inequality and discrimination.

We are writing to you ahead of International Human Rights Day 2021, which will take place on the 10th December amidst escalating global demands for the reform of laws and practices that entrench racial discrimination and social inequality, including drug policies. Last year, IDPC – together with dozens of other civil society and community organisations – called on you to issue a statement on International Human Rights Day urging Member States to change drug laws and practices that undermine health and human rights. A year later, we ask you to seize this day as an opportunity to show UNODC´s alignment with other UN entities in calling for an end to drug policies and practices that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, and violate human rights.

For decades, punitive drug policies have driven widespread human rights abuses, as has been amply documented by the UN. These include the death penalty for drug offences; extrajudicial killings; arbitrary detention, often masquerading as ‘rehabilitation’; the denial of access to life-saving harm reduction services; widespread barriers to accessing controlled medicines for pain relief; the criminalisation of people who use drugs, subsistence farmers and others groups in situations of vulnerability; corporal punishment; and mass incarceration. In all of these cases, draconian drug policies have disproportionately affected people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, thus entrenching inequality and discrimination.

Along 2021, a broad range of UN entities called on Member States to reform drug policies with discriminatory outcomes. In June 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a landmark study on arbitrary detention and drug polices, which found that ´

the war on drugs may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people. Its impact is often greatest on those who are poor, but also frequently overlaps with discrimination in law enforcement directed at vulnerable groups

´. At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a new ‘Agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality´, highlighting that ´

The discriminatory application of criminal law must be tackled at every stage, including by reforming drug-related policies

´. The High Commissioner´s proposal led to Human Rights Council Resolution 47/21, which contains key commitments to uproot systemic racism in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. The Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, adopted in June 2021, also showcased the international community´s commitment to ending inequalities as a step towards ending AIDS. Lastly, the new UN system Common Position on Incarceration, led by UNODC in partnership with other UN entities, notes ‘

the overrepresentation of minority and marginalized groups among prisoners, many of whom are charged with petty and nonviolent offences

support reform efforts aimed at ensuring proportionate and individualized sentencing and alternatives to conviction or punishment in appropriate cases, including for minor drug-related offences

These various commitments emerging across the United Nations are aligned with the 2018 Chief Executives Board’s UN System Common Position on drug-related matters, which makes clear that ‘

should be designed and implemented by States in accordance with their human rights obligations

’, and commits all UN agencies, including UNODC, to support drug policies ‘

that put people, health, and human rights at the centre

Similar human rights concerns have been highlighted in the just-released Global Drug Policy Index, which measures and ranks the national drug policies of 30 countries according to how well they align with the UN system Common Position on Drugs and its Task Team report of March 2019.

The theme of the 2021 International Human Rights Day is ‘Equality: Reducing inequalities, advancing human rights’, and is aimed at ´

addressing and finding solutions for deep-rooted forms of discrimination that have affected the most vulnerable people in societies

´. As such, it presents a crucial opportunity for UNODC to align itself with other UN entities in calling for the end of policies that perpetuate inequality and discrimination, while highlighting its commitment to the promotion of human rights, in line with the UN system Common Positions.

It is in this context that we urge you to issue a strong statement on International Human Rights Day, calling on states to change the drug laws, policies and practices that violate health and human rights, and entrench inequality. To be credible, such a statement should explicitly acknowledge the disproportionate impact of drug laws and drug control on people marginalised on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, and economic status, and urge Member States to:

Abolish the death penalty in all circumstances. Imposing capital punishment for drug offences has been found to be contrary to international human rights law by the Human Rights Committee, and the Human Rights Council.

Put an immediate end to extrajudicial killings committed in the name of drug control, as has been repeatedly called for by the Human Rights Council and UN human rights experts.

Permanently close compulsory drug detention centres, including those that masquerade as ‘rehabilitation’, and implement voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services, as recently called for by sixteen UN agencies, including UNODC.

Stress the urgent need to provide accessible, affordable, and adequately funded harm reduction services in community and closed settings, to fulfil the right to health and the right to life of people who use drugs, as demanded by several UN human rights bodies and experts. This is also central to UNODC’s core role as lead UNAIDS co-sponsor regarding prisons and HIV amongst people who use drugs.

Take immediate measures to address prison overcrowding, as already recommended by UNODC and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, by promoting alternatives to incarceration, and ensuring proportionate sentencing for all drug offences, including by taking into account mitigating factors – in line with the basic principle that prisons should only be used as a last resort in all circumstances.

Ensure that people who use drugs are not subject to arbitrary detention, torture, or ill-treatment – whether in state custody or public or private drug services. While under detention, people with a drug dependence or health problems associated with their drug use must be offered evidence-based treatment, harm reduction and other drug services on a strictly voluntary basis.

Promote the end of all punishment for drug use, and drug possession and cultivation for personal use, as permitted within the three drug control conventions. Such policy shifts will help to end the stigma, criminalisation, and exclusion faced by people who use drugs, and to facilitate access to health and social services, as called for by the UN system Common Position, UNAIDS, and UN human rights bodies.

Make sure that drug policies incorporate a gender-sensitive perspective. This should be done by tailoring drug services to the specific needs of women, and by ensuring that criminal laws take into account the circumstances of women involved in drug offences, as most of them come from backgrounds of poverty, marginalisation, and oppression.

Clearly outline the ways in which UNODC will work to achieve these changes, and the measures being taken to ensure that human rights are effectively embedded as a core strand for all of the Office’s work.

As the lead UN agency in drug-related matters, UNODC has the responsibility to promote drug policies that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, in a way that is consistent with the standards developed by the UN system, and in line with the commitments set in the UN system Common Positions on drugs and on incarceration. A strong statement in the forthcoming International Human Rights Day would be an important and welcome step to signal UNODC’s unequivocal commitment.

We look forward to discussing these concerns and recommendations with you.

NGOs urge UNODC's Executive Director to mark Human Rights Day with a call to reform drug policies that entrench inequality

You can help challenge wrongs, advance rights, and transform lives.

In countries of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region, people who use drugs are routinely denied basic healthcare and harm reduction services. They are unfairly targeted by police and subjected to torture. Parents face losing custody of their children. There are currently more than a million people living with HIV in the region — and without access to harm reduction services, the number of cases linked to injection drug use continues to grow. This is the reality we are working to change.

The HIV Legal Network has challenged injustice in the EECA since 2003, using scientific evidence and legal advocacy to defend rights and advocate for policies that will help us overcome the HIV epidemic. From our early efforts to implement harm reduction in EECA prisons to our more recent work on removing legal barriers to medical and social support for people most at risk of HIV, we have always centred human rights for all.

People who use drugs need support to prevent their human rights from being stripped away — and alongside our EECA partners, the HIV Legal Network is at the forefront of this work.

Human rights imperative: The HIV Legal Network in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

By Erika Dupuis & Kira London-Nadeau / Filter Mag

After decades of campaigning, the decriminalization of all drugs for personal use in Canada finally feels just around the corner.

On August 17, a set of guidelines issued by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) called on prosecutors to pursue non-criminal sanctions for simple drug possession. They noted plainly:

“Criminal sanctions, as a primary response, have limited effectiveness as (i) specific or general deterrents and (ii) as a means of addressing the public safety concerns when considering the harmful effects of criminal records and short periods of incarceration.”

Tragic increases in overdose deaths amid the pandemic, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario—together with growing calls, amid racial justice protests, to prioritize health and human rights over criminalization—can no longer be ignored.

Decriminalization is a bold idea—one seemingly too progressive for the Liberal Party of Canada, which leads a minority government that remains opposed. But we are rapidly approaching a tipping-point.

The PPSC’s announcement was praised in the media as an essential step toward decriminalization. But experts and advocates are wary of the guidelines’ limitations. Sandra Ka Hon Chu, director of research and advocacy at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, cautions about the discretion that police and prosecutors will retain. Speaking to Filter, she encouraged us to ask critical questions.

“Will police continue to surveil, harass and charge people?” she asked. “Will the requirement to continue to pursue charges for those who ‘possess in the vicinity of children’ or those with ‘statutory authority over children’ disproportionately fall on women who use drugs? Or will the requirement to continue to pursue charges against people in detention largely fall on Indigenous and Black people, who are both grossly overrepresented in our prison system and disproportionately marginalized by repressive drug laws?”

Despite these critical reservations—and the fact that the guidelines still entail civil penalties, like fines, for simple possession—the unprecedented announcement speaks loudly to an urgent question: Can full decriminalization become politically viable in Canada?

Canada is so close to decriminalizing drugs: Let’s make it happen

In Canada, people who use drugs are dying in record numbers. Between January 2016 and September 2019, more than 14,700 people died of apparent opioid overdoses in this country. In Ontario alone, more than 1450 people died from opioid-related causes in 2018. The overwhelming majority of these overdoses and deaths involve fentanyl or its analogues, a potent drug that is now present in many street drugs. Never before have we experienced an overdose crisis of this magnitude, which is only exacerbated by the criminalization of personal drug possession.

 (“the Good Samaritan law”) was passed as a partial response to this ongoing crisis. The law amended the 

 to give immunity from prosecution for the offence of simple possession of a controlled substance to anyone who calls 911 to report an overdose as well as to anyone who is on the scene when emergency services arrive.

In 2019, with the support of a research grant from the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (HIV Legal Network) embarked upon a research study in Ontario to evaluate familiarity with the Good Samaritan law, and what people who have experience with drug use believe to be true about this law. In the midst of the ongoing overdose crisis in Ontario and across Canada, it is critical to understand people’s awareness of this law, how (or whether) they interact with it, and how they experience its real-world impacts.

The Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act: The good, the bad and the ineffective

Harm Reduction International, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), the International Network of People who use Drugs (INPUD), LBH Masyarakat, Release, and Rights Reporter Foundation welcome the joint statement by the Special Rapporteur and other Special Procedures on the adoption of emergency measures to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, urging states to “remain steadfast in maintaining a human rights-based approach to regulating this pandemic.”

The COVID-19 emergency poses unprecedented challenges, creating new vulnerabilities and exacerbating existing ones. In this context, people who use drugs have unique needs and face unique risks due to criminalisation, stigma, underlying health issues, social marginalisation and higher economic and social vulnerabilities, including a lack of access to adequate housing and healthcare.

HRI joined leaders in harm reduction to call on the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health to provide guidance to states on how to promote and protect the right to health of people who use drugs in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Call to action COVID-19 - Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health

In its resolution 36/16, the Human Rights Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit a report on violence, death and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty, drawing on the experience of United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms, and seeking the views of States, including on their policies and best practices, civil society, and other relevant stakeholders. It requested the report to be presented at the forty-second session of the Human Rights Council. In preparation of this report, contributions were sought from Member States; international and regional organisations; national human rights institutions; and non-governmental organisations. 1 In addition to information received from these entities, the report draws on a range of public sources, including from United Nations human rights mechanisms, and work by civil society organisations.

The issue of violence, death and serious injury was identified by the Secretary General as one of the most important challenges pertaining to the protection of persons deprived of their liberty.2 By depriving persons of their liberty, States assume the responsibility to protect the life and bodily integrity of such persons. States are thus obligated to prevent the illtreatment of, and violence against such persons and to ensure that the conditions of a dignified life are met.

The human rights of persons deprived of their liberty are enumerated in core international human rights instruments. The right to life of all individuals, including of persons deprived of their liberty is enshrined in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), as is the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life. The right to be protected from the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is found in Article 7 of the ICCPR and in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Persons deprived of their liberty must also be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person per Article 10 of the ICCPR. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Mandela Rules, provide States with important and detailed guidelines for protecting and fulfilling the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty.

The present report addresses the intersection between situations of deprivation of liberty and violence, death and serious injury. The report examines the vertical, horizontal and environmental causes of violence, death and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty. It then considers measures which should be taken to address such incidents.

With regard to drug policy and related issues, the report:

Recognises people who use drugs as a group “facing an increased risk of torture and ill-treatment [in detention], as law enforcement officials in some cases deliberately take advantage of the pain and suffering associated with the withdrawal syndrome displayed by drug users deprived of their liberty to elicit forced confessions. Human rights mechanisms concluded that the use of withdrawal symptoms to obtain information or confessions, to punish or to intimidate or coerce may amount to torture”; (para 6)

Condemns the intentional withholding of drug treatment from a person who uses drugs as a form of punishment (para 7);

Addresses the lack of essential healthcare in prison, also touching upon drug dependence and people living with HIV, and acknowledges that “lack of healthcare or inadequate treatment in detention for persons who use drugs can also contravenes the right to health and can contribute to deaths in detention. Access of detainees to medical treatment, including access to opioid substitution therapy, is often severely restricted even if it has been demonstrated that therapy is the most effective intervention available for the treatment of opioid dependence and that it contributes to reducing mortality” (paras 29-34);

Condemns violence against people who use drugs perpetrated “under the guise of treatment when placed in mandatory administrative detention” (para. 32).

Submissions by Harm Reduction International and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Earlier this year, Harm Reduction International submitted two reports to OHCHR on violence, death and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty – one on conditions of death row, and one on forms of violence in situations of deprivation of liberty for drug-related offences.

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