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HIV and Enabling Legal Environments

Since 2001, countries have reported on actions in the response to the commitments to human rights, law and HIV that they made in the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS under the UNGASS reporting framework. These reports, as well as information from other sources, reveal that progress has been made in some sectors towards creating enabling legal environments for effective HIV responses. However, there are also indications that many governments have yet to take sufficient steps, in the context of HIV, to codify and implement protective laws, change laws and law enforcement that act as obstacles to HIV services or violate human rights, and increase access to justice.