2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS

26th UNGA Spe­cial Ses­sion
27 June 2001

Res­o­lu­tion 2001-ST-DPI-2229

Down­load

Source

Offi­cial record 2001-A-S-26-PV.1-6

Down­load

Source

Analysis of precedential value

This dec­la­ra­tion is the prod­uct of the United Nations Gen­eral Assem­bly Spe­cial Ses­sion on HIV/AIDS in June 2001. The UN Gen­eral Assem­bly adopted this res­o­lu­tion with­out a gen­eral vote two months later. The Gen­eral Assem­bly is the pre­em­i­nent gov­ern­ing body of the UN sys­tem and con­sists of all 193 UN Mem­ber States.

Used as precedent

gender equality

• “Stress­ing that gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of women are fun­da­men­tal ele­ments in the reduc­tion of the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of women and girls to HIV/AIDS.” (para­graph 14)

• “By 2005, imple­ment mea­sures to increase capac­i­ties of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion , prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and health ser­vices, includ­ing for sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and through pre­ven­tion edu­ca­tion that pro­motes gen­der equal­ity within a cul­tur­ally and gen­der-sen­si­tive frame­work.” (para­graph 60)

key population and community leadership

• “Acknowl­edg­ing the par­tic­u­lar role and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV/AIDS, young peo­ple and civil soci­ety actors in address­ing the prob­lem of HIV/AIDS in all its aspects, and rec­og­niz­ing that their full involve­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the design, plan­ning, imple­men­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion of pro­grammes is cru­cial to the devel­op­ment of effec­tive responses to the HIV/AIDS epi­demic.” (para­graph 33)

• “By 2005, develop and make sig­nif­i­cant progress in imple­ment­ing com­pre­hen­sive care strate­gies to: strengthen fam­ily and com­mu­nity-based care, includ­ing that pro­vided by the infor­mal sec­tor, and health­care sys­tems to pro­vide and mon­i­tor treat­ment to peo­ple liv­ing with HIV/AIDS, includ­ing infected chil­dren, and to sup­port indi­vid­u­als, house­holds,fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties affected by HIV/AIDS; and improve the capac­ity and work­ing con­di­tions of health-care per­son­nel, and the effec­tive­ness of sup­ply sys­tems, financ­ing plans and refer­ral mech­a­nisms required to pro­vide access to afford­able med­i­cines, includ­ing anti­retro­vi­ral drugs, diag­nos­tics and related tech­nolo­gies, as well as qual­ity med­ical, pal­lia­tive and psy­choso­cial care.” (para­graph 56)

comprehensive sexuality education

• “By 2005, ensure that at least 90 per cent, and by 2010 at least 95 per cent of young men and women aged 15 to 24 have access to the infor­ma­tion, edu­ca­tion, includ­ing peer edu­ca­tion and youth-spe­cific HIV edu­ca­tion, and ser­vices nec­es­sary to develop the life skills required to reduce their vul­ner­a­bil­ity to HIV infec­tion, in full part­ner­ship with young per­sons,par­ents, fam­i­lies, edu­ca­tors and health-care providers” (para­graph 53)

human rights

• “By 2003, enact, strengthen, or enforce, as appro­pri­ate, leg­is­la­tion, reg­u­la­tions and other mea­sures to elim­i­nate all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion against and to ensure the full enjoy­ment of all human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms by peo­ple liv­ing with HIV/AIDS and mem­bers of vul­ner­a­ble groups, in par­tic­u­lar to ensure their access to, inter alia, edu­ca­tion, inher­i­tance, employ­ment, health care, social and health ser­vices, pre­ven­tion, sup­port, and treat­ment, infor­ma­tion and legal pro­tec­tion, while respect­ing their pri­vacy and con­fi­den­tial­ity; and develop strate­gies to com­bat stigma and social exclu­sion con­nected with the epi­demic.” (para­graph 58)

sexual rights

• “By 2005, bear­ing in mind the con­text and char­ac­ter of the epi­demic and that, glob­ally, women and girls are dis­pro­por­tion­ately affected by HIV/AIDS, develop and accel­er­ate the imple­men­ta­tion of national strate­gies that pro­mote the advance­ment of women and women’s full enjoy­ment of all human rights; pro­mote shared respon­si­bil­ity of men and women to ensure safe sex; and empower women to have con­trol over and decide freely and respon­si­bly on mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion.” (para­graph 59)

bodily autonomy and integrity

• “By 2005, ensure devel­op­ment and accel­er­ated imple­men­ta­tion of national strate­gies for women’s empow­er­ment, the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of women’s full enjoy­ment of all human rights and reduc­tion of their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to HIV/AIDS through the elim­i­na­tion of all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion, as well as all forms of vio­lence against women and girls, includ­ing harm­ful tra­di­tional and cus­tom­ary prac­tices, abuse, rape and other forms of sex­ual vio­lence, bat­ter­ing and traf­fick­ing in women and girls.” (para­graph 61)

key and vulnerable populations

• “By 2003, develop and/or strengthen national strate­gies, poli­cies and pro­grammes, sup­ported by regional and inter­na­tional ini­tia­tives, as appro­pri­ate, through a par­tic­i­pa­tory approach, to pro­mote and pro­tect the health of those iden­ti­fi­able groups which cur­rently have high or increas­ing rates of HIV infec­tion or which pub­lic health infor­ma­tion indi­cates are at great­est risk of and most vul­ner­a­ble to new infec­tion as indi­cated by such fac­tors as the local his­tory of the epi­demic, poverty, sex­ual prac­tices, drug-using behav­iour, liveli­hood, insti­tu­tional loca­tion, dis­rupted social struc­tures and pop­u­la­tion move­ments, forced or oth­er­wise.” (para­graph 64)

• “By 2003, develop and by 2005 imple­ment national poli­cies and strate­gies to build and strengthen gov­ern­men­tal, fam­ily and com­mu­nity capac­i­ties to pro­vide a sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment for orphans and girls and boys infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, includ­ing by pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate coun­sell­ing and psy­choso­cial sup­port, ensur­ing their enrol­ment in school and access to shel­ter, good nutri­tion and health and social ser­vices on an equal basis with other chil­dren; and pro­tect orphans and vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren from all forms of abuse, vio­lence, exploita­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, traf­fick­ing and loss of inher­i­tance.” (para­graph 65)

positive legal determinants

• “By 2003, develop a national legal and pol­icy frame­work that pro­tects in the work­place the rights and dig­nity of per­sons liv­ing with and affected by HIV/AIDS and those at the great­est risk of HIV/AIDS, in con­sul­ta­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of employ­ers and work­ers, tak­ing account of estab­lished inter­na­tional guide­lines on HIV/AIDS in the work­place.” (para­graph 69)