HIV/AIDS and human rights: we've only just begun.

Public health and human rights often used to be seen as incompatible frameworks for action. HIV/AIDS was supposed to break that mould and be the epidemic where respecting human rights would be the most effective way to achieve the public health goal of conquering the epidemic. In this article, Joanne Csete suggests that while in theory everybody buys into the effectiveness of rights-based approaches to HIV/AIDS, the practice leaves much to be desired. The author describes the human rights framework that is the foundation for a more effective response to HIV/AIDS and stresses the urgency of paying more than lip service to the need to put human rights at the centre of the fight against HIV/AIDS in Canada and beyond.