International Politics Of Hiv Aids

This book examines the global governance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, interrogating the role of this international system and global discourse on HIV/AIDS interventions. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa since the region has been at the forefront of these interventions. There is a need to understand the relationship between the international political environment and the impact of resulting policies on HIV/AIDS in the context of people’s lives. Hakan Seckinelgin points out a certain disjuncture between this governance structures and the way people experience the disease in their everyday lives. Although the structure allows people to emerge as policy relevant target groups and beneficiaries, the articulation of needs and design of policy interventions tends to reflect international priorities rather than people’s thinking on the problem. In other words, he argues that while the international interventions highlight the importance attributed to the HIV/AIDS problem, the nature of the system does not allow interventions to be far reaching and sustainable. Offering a critical contribution to the understanding of the problems in HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, International Politics of HIV/AIDS will be invaluable to students and researchers of health, international politics and development.

AIDS has a unique political history. As fears grew of a global pandemic on the scale of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS was briefly treated as an issue of high politics in the international arena and generated significant resources for country programmes. That initial commitment is now declining, and if AIDS is to maintain its visibility and contribution to global solidarity, human rights and dignity, its politics will have to evolve to reflect the profound geo-political, economic and social transformations underway today. This volume brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines who work at the intersection of politics and HIV. They reflect on the lessons learned from the past thirty years of the politics of AIDS and how political science, writ large, can further contribute to the understanding and practice of political mobilization around AIDS. Through case studies and analysis, new insights into identity politics and social movements in countries as diverse as Brazil, Switzerland, Vietnam and Zambia are offered alongside new approaches to understanding the determinants and incentives which generate political will and commitment. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), reports on the influence of civil society in international relations and traditional partisan divides. AIDS thrust health into national and international politics where, he argues, it rightly belongs. The global reaction to AIDS over the past decade is the positive result of this partnership, showing what can be acheved when science, politics, and policy converge on the ground. Piot describes funding mechanisms for AIDS, the first international declarations, the response of the UN system, the establishment of UNAIDS, the response of high income countries to AIDS, The Global Fund and PEPFAR as game-changers, and lessons for other health problems.

This timely book looks critically at the policy response to AIDS and its institutionalization over time. It raises important questions about who benefits, who decides, and in whose interests decisions are made. Taking the early international response to the epidemic as its starting point, and focusing on the work of agencies such as UNAIDS, it identifies two logics underpinning strategy to date. First, the idea of HIV as a ‘global emergency’ which calls for an extraordinary response. Second, the claim that medicine offers the best way of dealing with it. The book also identified the rise of something more dominant – namely Global AIDS – or the logic and system that seeks to displace all others. Promulgated by UNAIDS and its partner agencies, Global AIDS claims to speak the truth on behalf of affected persons and communities everywhere. Founded on solidarity claims concerning the international HIV movement, and distinctive knowledge practices which determine what needs to be done. Alternative views about the nature of the epidemic or the best response are rejected as irrelevant for falling outside the master framing of the epidemic that Global AIDS provides. But to what extent is this biomedical and emergency framing of the epidemic sustainable, and to what extent does it speak to the sustainability of lives as affected people wish them to be lived? Does scientific and biomedical advance provide all the answers, or do important social and political issues need to be addressed? This book provides an innovative framework with which to think about these and other sustainability challenges for the future.

ÔHIV/AIDS remains a major global health problem, despite the progress made in its prevention and treatment. Addressing this problem is not only a matter of more and better drugs, they need to be widely accessible and be affordable to the poor. This book makes, with a much welcomed interdisciplinary approach, an excellent contribution to understanding how the intellectual property regime can influence health policies and the lives of millions of people affected by the disease. The analysis provided by the various authors that contributed to this book will be of relevance not only to those working in the area of HIV/AIDS, but to those more broadly interested in public health governance and the role of intellectual property rights.Õ Ð Carlos Correa, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina ÔThis is an important, innovative and, at times, controversial collection. Inter-disciplinary in approach, this collection will have appeal to those concerned with the global injustice in the context of HIV/AIDS. Investigating the legal, political and economic determinants of access to essential medicines, this is thought provoking collection which will resonate with many in both the academic and public policy community.Õ Ð Bryan Mercurio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong This important book brings together leading scholars from multiple disciplines, including intellectual property, human rights, public health, and development studies, as well as activists to critically reflect on the global health governance regime. The Global Governance of HIV/AIDS explores the implications of high international intellectual property standards for access to essential medicines in developing countries. With a focus on HIV/AIDS governance, the volume provides a timely analysis of the international legal and political landscape, the relationship between human rights and intellectual property, and emerging issues in global health policy. It concludes with concrete strategies on how to improve access to HIV/AIDS medicines. This interdisciplinary, global, and up-to-date book will strongly appeal to academics in law, international relations, health policy and public policy, as well as students, policymakers and activists.

This book challenges the conventional security-based international policy frameworks that have developed for dealing with HIV/AIDS during and after conflicts, and examines first-hand evidence and experiences of conflict and HIV/AIDS. Since the turn of the century international policy agenda on security have focused on HIV/AIDS only as a concern for national and international security, ignoring people’s particular experiences, vulnerabilities and needs in conflict and post-conflict contexts. Developing a gender-based framework for HIV/AIDS-conflict analysis, this book draws on research conducted in Burundi to understand the implications of post-conflict demobilization and reintegration policies on women and men and their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. By centring the argument on personal reflections, this work provides a critical alternative method to engage with conflict and HIV/AIDS, and a much richer understanding of the relationship between the two. International Security, Conflict and Genderwill be of interest to students and scholars of healthcare politics, security and governance.