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International Obligation and Human Health: Evolving Policy Responses to HIV/AIDS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Paul G. Harris  and
Patricia Siplon
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Extract

The world is in the early stages of what will be the greatest health crisis since the advent of modern medical technologies. Millions of people—particularly people in many of the world's poor countries—are infected with HIV. The vast majority of these people will go without modern medical intervention or substantial treatment, and will rapidly develop AIDS. The extent of this problem presents profound moral and ethical questions for the world's wealthy people and countries, for it is they who are most able to assist the poor in managing and reversing this human tragedy.

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Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , September 2001 , pp. 29 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2001

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References

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8 An excellent and more extensive discussion of these interactions of poverty and HIV can be found in Brook K. Baker, “South African AIDS: Impacts of Globalization, Pharmaceutical Apartheid, and Legal Activism,” April 3, 2001, pp. 4–7; available at http://www.globaltreatmentaccess.orgGoogle Scholar.

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29 One indicator of this lack of responsiveness is the absolute numbers in foreign aid devoted to this problem by developed countries. An excellent analysis is provided by Attaran, Amir and Sachs, Jeffrey, “Defining and Refining International Donor Support for Combating the AIDS Pandemic,” Lancet 357, No. 9249 (January 6, 2001), pp. 57–61CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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50 When asked why he thought the United States was providing food aid to North Korea, that country's consul-general to Hong Kong, Ri To Sop, told one of us on June 11, 2001, “It's humanitarian,” and “Because we are human beings.” This is a profound assessment, given his country's animosity toward the United States governmentGoogle Scholar.

51 See Harris, Paul G., International Equity and Global Environmental Politics (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001Google Scholar).

52 FCCC, Preamble, Articles 3 and 4. For a more detailed discussion of the common but differentiated responsibility principle, see Harris, Paul G., “Common but Differentiated Responsibility: The Kyoto Protocol and United States Policy,” Environmental Law Journal 7, No. 1 (1999), pp. 27–48Google Scholar; and Harris, International Equity and Global Environmental Politics.

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58 Kofi Annan, “Address to the African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Infectious Diseases,”Abuja, April 26, 2001; available at http://www.healthnet.org/programs/e-drug-hma/e-drug.200104/msg00097.htmlGoogle Scholar.