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Introduction

During the week of May 29 to June 2, 2006, approximately seventy five thousand people became infected with HIV.  Approximately fifty thousand more died of AIDS.¹  During that same week, the United Nations held a High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS.  Five years since the historic 2001 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV, and recognizing the largely missed goals that followed, state and civil society leaders came together for what many hoped would be three days of serious review and recommitment to combating AIDS.  As Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in his report prior to the Meeting, “the global AIDS response stands at a crossroads.”² 

Would the global community start down a new road at the meeting?  Trepidation about targets and debates about definitions – including that of “vulnerable groups” – formed the centerpiece of a tense meeting that saw strident negotiations, protest, and the expulsion of some civil society representatives from the U.N.³  With the Meeting’s close came a new Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.  Civil society response was swift and generally critical.⁴  For many, the Political Declaration stays the course of opaque goals and lost opportunities. 

This briefing paper seeks to critically review the political declaration: to identify missed opportunities to protect human rights and more effectively address the HIV/AIDS pandemic; and to see where, despite its shortcoming, the political declaration can serve as the basis for future advocacy, focusing on how the Declaration can be used to hold governments accountable and how civil society can continue to participate in the process of goal-setting, monitoring, and national reviews envisioned by the Declaration. It examines the Political Declaration’s treatment of five key issues relating to HIV in light of human rights principles: (1) women’s rights as they relate to HIV, (2) children and youth, (3) socially marginalized individuals, (4) treatment, and (5) targets and accountability.