2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS

70th UNGA
8 June 2016

Res­o­lu­tion A/RES/70/266

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Offi­cial record A/70/PV.97

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Analysis of precedential value

This dec­la­ra­tion is the prod­uct of the UN High-Level Meet­ing on AIDS in June 2016. It was adopted by the UN Gen­eral Assem­bly with­out a gen­eral vote sev­eral days later. The Gen­eral Assem­bly is the pre­em­i­nent gov­ern­ing body of the UN sys­tem and con­sists of all 193 UN Mem­ber States.

At that High-Level Meet­ing, sit­ting UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral Ban Ki-moon remarked: “None of this [global progress on AIDS] could have hap­pened with­out the lead­er­ship of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV and civil soci­ety part­ners on the ground around the world. They believed that more equi­table treat­ment and access was pos­si­ble, and they made sure that we responded. They broke the silence and shone a light on dis­crim­i­na­tion, intol­er­ance and stigma. They brought pas­sion to their fight, and that pas­sion will make the end of AIDS a real­ity.”

Used as precedent

human rights

• “Reaf­firm that the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of, and respect for, the human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms of all, includ­ing the right to devel­op­ment, which are uni­ver­sal, indi­vis­i­ble, inter­de­pen­dent and inter­re­lated, should be main­streamed into all HIV and AIDS poli­cies and pro­grammes, and also reaf­firm the need to take mea­sures to ensure that every per­son is enti­tled to par­tic­i­pate in, con­trib­ute to and enjoy eco­nomic, social, cul­tural and polit­i­cal devel­op­ment and that equal atten­tion and urgent con­sid­er­a­tion should be given to the pro­mo­tion, pro­tec­tion and ful­fil­ment of all human rights.” (para­graph 7)

• “Empha­size the con­tin­ued impor­tance, par­tic­u­larly given the 2015 World Health Orga­ni­za­tion guide­lines rec­om­mend­ing that anti­retro­vi­ral ther­apy be ini­ti­ated for every­one liv­ing with HIV at any CD4 cell count, of a more inte­grated and sys­temic approach to address­ing peo­ple’s access to qual­ity, peo­ple-cen­tred health-care ser­vices in a more holis­tic man­ner, in the con­text of pro­mot­ing the right to the enjoy­ment of the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health and well-being, uni­ver­sal access to sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and repro­duc­tive rights in accor­dance with the Pro­gramme of Action of the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Pop­u­la­tion and Devel­op­ment and the Bei­jing Plat­form for Action and the out­come doc­u­ments of their review con­fer­ences, uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, social pro­tec­tion for peo­ple in vul­ner­a­ble sit­u­a­tions, strength­en­ing of local, national and inter­na­tional health and social pro­tec­tion sys­tems, includ­ing com­mu­nity sys­tems, inte­grated responses to address non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and HIV and AIDS, and pre­pared­ness to tackle emerg­ing dis­ease out­breaks, such as the Ebola and Zika virus dis­ease out­breaks and those yet to be iden­ti­fied, and other health threats.” (para­graph 14)

• “Empha­size that the mean­ing­ful involve­ment of peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV and pop­u­la­tions at higher risk of HIV facil­i­tates the achieve­ment of more effec­tive AIDS responses and that peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV should enjoy equally all human rights and enjoy equal par­tic­i­pa­tion in civil, polit­i­cal, social, eco­nomic and cul­tural life, with­out prej­u­dice, stigma or dis­crim­i­na­tion of any kind.” (para­graph 21)

• “Note with grave con­cern that the holis­tic needs and human rights of peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, and of young peo­ple, remain insuf­fi­ciently addressed because of inad­e­quate inte­gra­tion of health ser­vices, includ­ing sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health-care and HIV ser­vices, includ­ing for peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced sex­ual or gen­der-based vio­lence, includ­ing post-expo­sure pro­phy­laxis, legal ser­vices and social pro­tec­tion.” (para­graph 47)

key and vulnerable populations

• “Rec­og­nize the role that com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions play, includ­ing those led and run by peo­ple liv­ing with HIV, in sup­port­ing and sus­tain­ing national and local HIV and AIDS responses, reach­ing all peo­ple liv­ing with HIV, deliv­er­ing pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, care and sup­port ser­vices and strength­en­ing health sys­tems, in par­tic­u­lar the pri­mary health-care approach.” (para­graph 9)

gender equality

• “Remain deeply con­cerned that, glob­ally, women and girls are still the most affected by the epi­demic and that they bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the care­giv­ing bur­den, note that progress towards gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls has been unac­cept­ably slow and that the abil­ity of women and girls to pro­tect them­selves from HIV con­tin­ues to be com­pro­mised by phys­i­o­log­i­cal fac­tors, gen­der inequal­i­ties, includ­ing unequal power rela­tions in soci­ety between women and men and boys and girls, and unequal legal, eco­nomic and social sta­tus, insuf­fi­cient access to health-care ser­vices, includ­ing sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence in the pub­lic and pri­vate spheres, includ­ing traf­fick­ing in per­sons, sex­ual vio­lence, exploita­tion and harm­ful prac­tices.” (para­graph 41)

• “Rec­og­nize that the unequal socioe­co­nomic sta­tus of women com­pro­mises their abil­ity to pre­vent HIV or mit­i­gate the impact of AIDS, acknowl­edge the mutu­ally rein­forc­ing links between the achieve­ment of gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls and the erad­i­ca­tion of poverty, and reaf­firm that the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of, and respect for, the human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms of women should be main­streamed into all poli­cies and pro­grammes aimed at the erad­i­ca­tion of poverty.” (para­graph 61(a))

• “Stress, in that regard, that the lack of pro­tec­tion and pro­mo­tion of the human rights of all women and their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and repro­duc­tive rights in accor­dance with the Pro­gramme of Action of the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence on Pop­u­la­tion and Devel­op­ment, the Bei­jing Plat­form for Action and the out­come doc­u­ments of their review con­fer­ences, and insuf­fi­cient access to the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health, aggra­vates the impact of the epi­demic, espe­cially among women and girls, increas­ing their vul­ner­a­bil­ity and endan­ger­ing the sur­vival of present and future gen­er­a­tions.” (para­graph 61(b))

• “Pledge to elim­i­nate gen­der inequal­i­ties and gen­der-based abuse and vio­lence, increase the capac­ity of women and ado­les­cent girls to pro­tect them­selves from the risk of HIV infec­tion, prin­ci­pally through the pro­vi­sion of health care and ser­vices, includ­ing, inter alia, sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, as well as full access to com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion, ensure that women can exer­cise their right to have con­trol over, and decide freely and respon­si­bly on, mat­ters related to their sex­u­al­ity, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, free of coer­cion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence, in order to increase their abil­ity to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion, and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to cre­ate an enabling envi­ron­ment for the empow­er­ment of women and to strengthen their eco­nomic inde­pen­dence, and, in this con­text, reit­er­ate the impor­tance of the role of men and boys in achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity.” (para­graph 61(c))

• “Com­mit to achiev­ing gen­der equal­ity and the empow­er­ment of all women and girls, to respect­ing, pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing their human rights, edu­ca­tion and health, includ­ing their sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, by invest­ing in gen­der-respon­sive approaches and ensur­ing gen­der main­stream­ing at all lev­els, sup­port­ing women’s lead­er­ship in the AIDS response and engag­ing men and boys, rec­og­niz­ing that gen­der equal­ity and pos­i­tive gen­der norms pro­mote effec­tive responses to HIV.” (para­graph 61(d))

• “Com­mit to end­ing all forms of vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls, such as gen­der-based, sex­ual, domes­tic and inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, by, inter alia, elim­i­nat­ing sex­ual exploita­tion of women, girls and boys, traf­fick­ing in per­sons, femi­cide, abuse, rape in every and in all cir­cum­stances and other forms of sex­ual vio­lence, dis­crim­i­na­tory laws and harm­ful social norms that per­pet­u­ate the unequal sta­tus of women and girls, as well as harm­ful prac­tices such as child, early and forced mar­riage, forced preg­nancy, forced ster­il­iza­tion, in par­tic­u­lar of women liv­ing with HIV, forced and coerced abor­tion and female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, includ­ing in con­flict, post-con­flict and other human­i­tar­ian emer­gen­cies, as these can have seri­ous and long-last­ing impacts on the health and well-being of women and girls through­out the life cycle and increase their vul­ner­a­bil­ity to HIV.” (para­graph 61(h))

• “Com­mit to devel­op­ing and to strength­en­ing, in all coun­tries, national poli­cies, norms and mea­sures directly aimed at aware­ness, pre­ven­tion and pun­ish­ment of all forms of vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls, as well as to devel­op­ing poli­cies aimed at the pre­ven­tion of sex­ual vio­lence and com­pre­hen­sive care for chil­dren and ado­les­cents sex­u­ally abused.” (para­graph 61(k))

key population and community leadership

• “Note with alarm the slow progress in reduc­ing new infec­tions and the lim­ited scale of com­bi­na­tion pre­ven­tion pro­grammes, empha­siz­ing that each coun­try should define the spe­cific pop­u­la­tions that are key to its epi­demic and response, based on the local epi­demi­o­log­i­cal con­text, and note with grave con­cern that women and ado­les­cent girls, in par­tic­u­lar in sub-Saha­ran Africa, are more than twice as likely to become HIV-pos­i­tive than boys of the same age, and not­ing also that many national HIV pre­ven­tion, test­ing and treat­ment pro­grammes pro­vide insuf­fi­cient access to ser­vices for women and ado­les­cent girls, migrants and key pop­u­la­tions that epi­demi­o­log­i­cal evi­dence shows are glob­ally at higher risk of HIV, specif­i­cally peo­ple who inject drugs, who are 24 times more likely to acquire HIV than adults in the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion, sex work­ers, who are 10 times more likely to acquire HIV, men who have sex with men, who are 24 times more likely to acquire HIV, trans­gen­der peo­ple, who are 49 times more likely to be liv­ing with HIV, and pris­on­ers, who are 5 times more likely to be liv­ing with HIV than adults in the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion.” (para­graph 42)

• “Com­mit to build­ing peo­ple-cen­tred sys­tems for health by strength­en­ing health and social sys­tems, includ­ing for pop­u­la­tions that epi­demi­o­log­i­cal evi­dence shows are at higher risk of infec­tion, by expand­ing com­mu­nity-led ser­vice deliv­ery to cover at least 30 per­cent of all ser­vice deliv­ery by 2030, through invest­ment in human resources for health, as well as in the nec­es­sary equip­ment, tools and med­i­cines, by pro­mot­ing that such poli­cies are based on a non-dis­crim­i­na­tory approach that respects, pro­motes and pro­tects human rights, and by build­ing the capac­ity of civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions to deliver HIV pre­ven­tion and treat­ment ser­vices.” (para­graph 60(d))

negative legal determinants

• “Express grave con­cern that, despite a gen­eral decline in dis­crim­i­na­tory atti­tudes and poli­cies towards peo­ple liv­ing with, pre­sumed to be liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, includ­ing those co-infected by tuber­cu­lo­sis, par­tic­u­larly in coun­tries with a high tuber­cu­lo­sis/HIV bur­den, dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ues to be reported, and that restric­tive legal and pol­icy frame­works, includ­ing those related to HIV trans­mis­sion, con­tinue to dis­cour­age and pre­vent peo­ple from access­ing pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, care and sup­port ser­vices.” (para­graph 44)

• “Com­mit to strength­en­ing mea­sures at the inter­na­tional, regional, national, and local and com­mu­nity lev­els to pre­vent crimes and vio­lence against, and vic­tim­iza­tion of, peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV and fos­ter social devel­op­ment and inclu­sive­ness, inte­grat­ing such mea­sures into over­all law enforce­ment efforts and com­pre­hen­sive HIV poli­cies and pro­grammes as key to reach­ing the global AIDS fast-track tar­gets and the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, and review­ing and reform­ing, as needed, leg­is­la­tion that may cre­ate bar­ri­ers or rein­force stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, such as age of con­sent laws, laws related to HIV non-dis­clo­sure, expo­sure and trans­mis­sion, pol­icy pro­vi­sions and guide­lines that restrict access to ser­vices among ado­les­cents, travel restric­tions and manda­tory test­ing, includ­ing of preg­nant women, who should still be encour­aged to take the HIV test, to remove adverse effects on the suc­cess­ful, effec­tive and equi­table deliv­ery of HIV pre­ven­tion, treat­ment care and sup­port pro­grammes to peo­ple liv­ing with HIV.” (para­graph 63(b))

• “Com­mit to inten­si­fy­ing national efforts to cre­ate enabling legal, social and pol­icy frame­works in each national con­text in order to elim­i­nate stigma, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence related to HIV, includ­ing by link­ing ser­vice providers in health-care, work­place, edu­ca­tional and other set­tings, and pro­mot­ing access to HIV pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, care and sup­port and non-dis­crim­i­na­tory access to edu­ca­tion, health-care, employ­ment and social ser­vices, pro­vid­ing legal pro­tec­tions for peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, includ­ing in rela­tion to inher­i­tance rights and respect for pri­vacy and con­fi­den­tial­ity, and pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing all human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.” (para­graph 63(c))

• “Com­mit to national AIDS strate­gies that empower peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV to know their rights and to access jus­tice and legal ser­vices to pre­vent and chal­lenge vio­la­tions of human rights, includ­ing strate­gies and pro­grammes aimed at sen­si­tiz­ing law enforce­ment offi­cials and mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture and judi­ciary, train­ing health-care work­ers in non-dis­crim­i­na­tion, con­fi­den­tial­ity and informed con­sent, and sup­port­ing national human rights learn­ing cam­paigns, as well as mon­i­tor­ing the impact of the legal envi­ron­ment on HIV pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, care and sup­port.” (para­graph 63(e))

• “Com­mit to pro­mot­ing laws and poli­cies that ensure the enjoy­ment of all human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms for chil­dren, ado­les­cents and young peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly those liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, so as to elim­i­nate the stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion that they face.” (para­graph 63(f))

combination prevention, gender equality

• “Com­mit to adopt­ing, review­ing and accel­er­at­ing effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of laws that crim­i­nal­ize vio­lence against women and girls, as well as com­pre­hen­sive, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and gen­der-respon­sive pre­ven­tive, pro­tec­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­ial mea­sures and ser­vices to elim­i­nate and pre­vent all forms of vio­lence against all women and girls, in pub­lic and pri­vate spaces, as well as harm­ful prac­tices.” (para­graph 61(i))

combination prevention

• “Com­mit to redou­bling non-dis­crim­i­na­tory HIV pre­ven­tion efforts by tak­ing all mea­sures to imple­ment com­pre­hen­sive, evi­dence-based pre­ven­tion approaches to reduce new HIV infec­tions, includ­ing by con­duct­ing pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns and tar­geted HIV edu­ca­tion to raise pub­lic aware­ness.” (para­graph 62(b))

• “Com­mit to sat­u­rat­ing areas with high HIV inci­dence with a com­bi­na­tion of tai­lored pre­ven­tion inter­ven­tions, includ­ing out­reach through tra­di­tional and social media and peer-led mech­a­nisms, male and female con­dom pro­gram­ming, vol­un­tary med­ical male cir­cum­ci­sion and effec­tive mea­sures aimed at min­i­miz­ing the adverse pub­lic health and social con­se­quences of drug abuse, includ­ing appro­pri­ate med­ica­tion-assisted ther­apy pro­grammes, inject­ing equip­ment pro­grammes, pre-expo­sure pro­phy­laxis for peo­ple at high risk of acquir­ing HIV, anti­retro­vi­ral ther­apy and other rel­e­vant inter­ven­tions that pre­vent the trans­mis­sion of HIV, with par­tic­u­lar focus on young peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly young women and girls, and encour­ag­ing the finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port of inter­na­tional part­ners as appro­pri­ate.” (para­graph 62(d))

• “Pro­mote the devel­op­ment of and access to tai­lored com­pre­hen­sive HIV pre­ven­tion ser­vices for all women and ado­les­cent girls, migrants and key pop­u­la­tions.” (para­graph 62(e))

• “Encour­age Mem­ber States with high HIV inci­dence to take all appro­pri­ate steps to ensure that 90 per cent of those at risk of HIV infec­tion are reached by com­pre­hen­sive pre­ven­tion ser­vices, that 3 mil­lion per­sons at high risk access pre-expo­sure pro­phy­laxis and that an addi­tional 25 mil­lion young men are vol­un­tar­ily med­ically cir­cum­cised by 2020 in high HIV-inci­dence areas, and ensure the avail­abil­ity of 20 bil­lion con­doms in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries.” (para­graph 62(f))

combination prevention, comprehensive sexuality education

• “Com­mit to accel­er­at­ing efforts to scale up sci­en­tif­i­cally accu­rate, age-appro­pri­ate com­pre­hen­sive edu­ca­tion, rel­e­vant to cul­tural con­texts, that pro­vides ado­les­cent girls and boys and young women and men, in and out of school, con­sis­tent with their evolv­ing capac­i­ties, with infor­ma­tion on sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health and HIV pre­ven­tion, gen­der equal­ity and women’s empow­er­ment, human rights, phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal and puber­tal devel­op­ment and power in rela­tion­ships between women and men, to enable them to build self-esteem and informed deci­sion-mak­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and risk reduc­tion skills and develop respect­ful rela­tion­ships, in full part­ner­ship with young per­sons, par­ents, legal guardians, care­givers, edu­ca­tors and health-care providers, in order to enable them to pro­tect them­selves from HIV infec­tion.” (para­graph 62(c))

combination prevention, intersectionality, key and vulnerable populations

• “Com­mit to elim­i­nat­ing bar­ri­ers, includ­ing stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion in health-care set­tings, to ensure uni­ver­sal access to com­pre­hen­sive HIV diag­nos­tics, pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, care and sup­port for peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, per­sons deprived of their lib­erty, indige­nous peo­ple, chil­dren, ado­les­cents, young peo­ple, women, and other vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions.” (para­graph 62(j))

key population and community leadership, societal enablers

• “Call for increased and sus­tained invest­ment in the advo­cacy and lead­er­ship role, involve­ment and empow­er­ment of peo­ple liv­ing with, at risk of and affected by HIV, women, chil­dren, bear­ing in mind the roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of par­ents, young peo­ple, espe­cially young women and girls, local lead­ers, com­mu­nity-based orga­ni­za­tions, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and civil soci­ety more gen­er­ally, as part of a broader effort to ensure that at least 6 per cent of all global AIDS resources are allo­cated for social enablers, includ­ing advo­cacy, com­mu­nity and polit­i­cal mobi­liza­tion, com­mu­nity mon­i­tor­ing, pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion and out­reach pro­grammes to increase access to rapid tests and diag­no­sis, as well as human rights pro­grammes such as law and pol­icy reform and stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion reduc­tion.” (para­graph 64(a))