IHRA’s Senior Human Rights Analyst, Damon Barrett, joined experienced scientists, clinicians, researchers and advocates from around the world to serve as a rapporteur for AIDS 2010 in Vienna Austria. His Summary Session was held on 23 July, immediately before the conference’s Closing Session, which featured video messages from US President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and International AIDS Society President Julio Montaner.

A transcript of his speech is below and a video link can be accessed by clicking here. His speech begins at the 1:03:41 mark.

DAMON BARRETT: I'd like to start this time by thanking my team. In particular, Rebecca Schliefer from Human Rights Watch who's helped me when I first was asked to do this and panicked. I am going to start with this last one, but I'm going to skip over it. I'm just going to say that we didn't get to everything as usual, rapporteurs's proviso, and I would like to congratulate IAS for the incorporation of human rights into many tracks as I think we saw in B and C.

So, Susan Timberlake's mantra for the week sums up my talk. We can't continue to talk about human rights abuses and stigma and discrimination, without in the next breath saying what to do about it and demanding that funding goes to community based rights solutions.

So, we heard a lot about the problems we faced this week and I will repeat them, but we also heard about people dealing with it and I think that's really important and I'm going to try and bring those solutions in.

It's a really difficult track, so I've used this basic circles of influence diagram. Both are a reminder of the complexity of the epidemic and the laws and policies that surround it but to also locate the many concrete actions people are taking. We have two international legal systems that have a massive impact in access to medicines and neither of them works. TRIPS, the international Drug control system, they're both complex, they're both moving targets, and they're revolving. The threats are revolving. Both have international, national, and community dimensions.

India's patent act showed a national legislation within international flexibilities can have impact either continent, in this case, Africa. But then in Africa, national laws are damaging that progress. This week, we heard from those engaged in national lobbying, national law reform campaigning and training of patent officers, a multipronged strategy which is responding to these challenges. Others remain remains, anticounterfeiting laws in free trade agreements pose further barriers.

Similarly, we heard from those working on access to opiates for pain relief and drug dependence treatment. Flexibilities within the drug treaties are being exploited, model other national laws are being drafted and doctors are being trained in opiate prescription, but the stigma surrounding these medicines is significant and must be addressed too.

If human rights entwined in national law, they must be translated into national law and policy and they must be realized on the street. Criminalization blocks all of this. This is why legal aid, legal empowerment and legal literacy for criminalized groups is so important. This includes the use of affidavits to transform that which may be seen as here say into something admissible in court.

In the UK, with African Migrants, in Botswana to challenge sodomy laws, and in Bolivia to challenge

sterilization of women living with HIV, the strategy is being utilized. Legal aid programs for drug users in the Ukraine and Indonesia, and for sex workers in Cambodia show that legal aid is not just about provision of a service, but about community empowerment. It's also about law reform from the grassroots.

A human rights and sexual rights framework, not criminalization is the answer. We heard from Portugal about its successes in decriminalizing drug use and possession and New Zealand's decriminalization of sex workers. However, laws can be drafted and policies perfected, but this is not enough. Social attitudes must also change.

A fascinating study on construction workers in China showed that this can happen. It takes dialogue and it takes information. I should make clear by the way that administrative measures can be as bad or even worse. Drug user registry in Eastern Europe and drug detention centers in East Asia are both ostensibly administrative sanctions.

Something that was not as much of a focus in the official program was the broader human rights picture, the day to day lives of people living with, and affected by HIV. public hearings for over 100 children affected by AIDS in India show that their main problem was not the virus, it was lack of food. I raise this to tell you that the hearings themselves resulted in action being taken to address food security for those children and other issues.

Another study presented here showed that education has positive impact on reducing HIV transmission, both among girls and boys. The impact of education and income data is a query in the CAPRESA trial as we just heard. I must confess that the quote on this slide doesn't come from the conference, it was emailed to me by a friend before I came here.

He was talking about drug users dying of exposure in Afghanistan before getting anywhere harm reduction service. I talked a little bit about empowerment, but let me reiterate that accountability and empowerment are connected. We all know this. The importance of the greater, meaningful involvement of people living with HIV and the need for investment in this is clear. I don't need to tell you that.

But what I'd like to ask is how do we involve criminalized groups? How do we involve youth? What mechanisms can we put in place to facilitate mothers living with HIV to fight for their own rights? This was somewhat of a gap in the official program. Anya Sarang started the week with a literary them and then I add my own, although it's from a comic book, who watches the watchmen?

This week, we heard a lot about donor accountability. UNICEF's funding of what only can be described as a center of child abuse in Cambodia, unity sees complicity and executions for drug offenses. And we heard that human rights advocacy works, one of those Cambodian centers is now closed because of human rights watches actions. [Applause]

Corruption on ARV procurement is being fought with advocates in the Ukraine forcing the government investigation. These are important things. The collusion of healthcare staff and human rights abuses from blackmail to denial of care for certain groups needs even great focus, again, the importance of legal empowerment cannot be understated, but perhaps by Washington, we will hear the conviction of such abuse. This is the sharp end of accountability. Human rights enforcement. I'd also like to see more discussion of business and human rights. Know your epidemic, apply a rights based approach, that's our mantra, but what we've heard this week is that knowing the epidemic which is not just biological and character requires a rights based analysis.

Human rights is sometimes seen as a barrier to public health goals, but now the predictions of human rights advocates are coming to pass. Provider initiated testing and counseling services as an example. Women in South Africa have reported denial of immunization for their children because they refused testing. Women in Serbia who are pregnant feel enormous pressure to be tested and are vilified if they don't want it, they might have very good reasons for that.

A model for treatment as prevention is impressive and it’s not my area, it's the first time I've seen it, but my first thought is that human rights kind of leaning guy was: how can we do that without getting draconian. It's about billions tested and millions in treatment. Public health must itself be humanized compliant, it's not enough on its own and it won't work otherwise.

Informed consent is not just a nice sounding principle, it's about treatment literacy and effective programming and we learned that this week. But make no mistake, human rights abuse, even if the effective towards a public health goal is not acceptable. [Applause]

On this, I'd just like to return to criminalization again. And this I'd like to return to criminalization very briefly. As long as we criminalize certain group and push them from services, which can act as excellent data collection mechanisms, we'll never get a proper picture of the epidemic.

And I'd like to reiterate what's said before, please do read The Lancet Special Edition for this conference, it's a great example of the nexus between science and human rights.

So the slide already showed you. AIDS is not in recession, this was a banner I believe understand in the global village. We have to remember that the progressive realization of human rights requires the maximum extent of available resources and that itself is a legal obligation.

This includes times of austerity, it includes developing countries, and it includes international cooperation too. Any better financing mechanisms such as the Robin Hood Tax may themselves be engines for the progressive realization of rights. But all the while, let's remember that funding must be delivered in a non-discriminatory way.

This week we were asked what it would cost to address HIV among women and we don't know. We learned about the complexities of disability and AIDS, women who used drugs, women who are sex workers, women who are migrants, women who are all free. Nondiscrimination includes finding ways to assist those in need of special attention and to ensure their rights are guaranteed.

But where will we get the money? To begin with, let's at least redirect funding from failed policies. That's pretty simple. Anyone who is in the drug policies zone, I'm sure you saw the amazing ticker counting up the dollars spent on the global war on drugs during the conference. That too was our AIDS money being used to fund policies that fuel the epidemic. [Applause]

Microbicides might not seem like a human rights track issue, but everybody has the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications. This came to our mind during the microbidcide session and I raise it here because the same threats we experienced with generic ARVs, we must now expect and start to address if people are to benefit from such discoveries.

Harm reduction works to reduce the spread of HIV and we know this for a long time. Bill Clinton knows this and he said it in his speech. Barack Obama knows this and PEPFAR guidelines now recognize this. But harm reduction must benefit young people and women too. Here I'd like to recognize the work of Youth Rise, the International Network of People who Use Drugs, and the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, because solutions are hard to find, but they will not come from government, they will come from groups like these. [Applause]

Of course, I'm going to raise this, the scientists are increasingly coming to human rights conclusions based on their research and that's what the Vienna Declaration is all about. We know from decades of evidence that unless we address our international and national drug laws and policies, we are never, ever, going to beat this epidemic. Please if you have not done so, read the declaration. If you agree with it, sign it, pass it on, and I'm assured by the organizers that this process will continue after this conference.

So what do we want to see in two years? You have your own ideas and I'll miss people's priorities, but here are some of my ideas, we should be seeing more funding for rights based programming because it is required by international law and becase it works, it's all that will work. Hopefully Austria will have drawn inspiration from the conference and begun to contribute to the Global Fund. [Applause]

I've already touched on my next two points, I won't reiterate, but I understand there were some problems in getting people to this conference and I hope that we can start planning now to predict barriers to attendance and deal with them in advance. [Applause]

And of course, by Washington, Maxim Popov in Uzbekistan the Alaei brothers in Iran should be enjoying their freedom and earlier Ilia Padolian should have been exonerated in the Ukraine. [Applause]

I wonder though, will we see a lifting of Russia's ban on OST. I doubt it and I wonder will we see a reduction in deaths from TB, I hope so. So during the conference to remind us what went on while we're in the cocoon, $2 billion was spent on the war on drugs, 3,000 people in the region that is the focus of this conference, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, contracted HIV, and meanwhile, Russia reasserted its plans to do absolutely nothing about that, while preparations were being made for a Russian Government official to take the lead reigns on this issue at the UN.

But, Libya reduced announced removal of travel restrictions and Argentina legalized same sex marriage. [Applause]

I have five seconds and I'm going to say this. Rights here right now has been the theme of the conference but to use a rather obscure musical reference, this is not here, this not now, the fight is at the international/national community levels where you all work, so from the Track F team, safe travels and good luck. [Applause]

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