Joseph Amon, the director of Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch based in New York, joined the organization in 2005 as head of its HIV/AIDS program , having worked for more than 15 years conducting research, designing programs, and evaluating interventions related to HIV, hepatitis, malaria and guinea worm eradication, for the CDC, USAID-funded projects, the Carter Center, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Since coming to HRW, Amon has worked on a wide range of issues including access to medicines (including antiretroviral, drug dependency, and pain relief treatment), HIV testing, the rights of prisoners and migrants to access health care, unproven AIDS 'cures', and human rights abuses associated with infectious disease outbreaks and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Amon has a master's degree in tropical medicine and a Ph.D. in epidemiology. He speaks French.

Human Rights Watch Reports

An Unbreakable Cycle: Drug Dependency Treatment, Mandatory Confinement, and HIV/AIDS in China's Guangxi Province (December 2008)

Neighbors in Need: Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa (June 2008)

No Bright Future: Government Failures, Human Rights Abuses and Squandered Progress in the Fight against AIDS in Zimbabwe (July 27, 2006)

Book Chapters

"High Hurdles for Health." China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges. Ed. Minky Worden. New York: Seven Stories Press. May 2008.

"Governance, Human Rights and Infectious Disease: Theoretical, Empirical and Practical Perspectives." Social Ecology of Infectious Diseases. Eds. Kenneth H. Mayer and H. F. Pizer. New York: Academic Press. December 2007. (with Jonathan Cohen)

Articles

"Essential Medicines and the Judicialization of Health in Brazil," The Lancet

"Counting and Accountability," The Lancet, January 12, 2008

"HIV Testing and Human Rights," The Lancet, Febraury 16, 2008

"Dangerous Medicines: Unproven AIDS Cures and Counterfeit Antiretroviral Drugs," Globalization and Health, February 27, 2008

"How not to fight HIV/Aids" The Guardian, January 28, 2008

 "The Bush Policy on AIDS," Huffington Post, July 2007

 "Diagnoses and Prescriptions," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007