Access to Medicines
The need for global, equitable access to medicines is urgent. Too many people in developing countries are dying because medicines are not available at prices they can afford and health agencies have limited budgets to pay high prices for brand-name drugs. People die because they cannot afford to buy life.
Our work focuses on laws and policies that affect access to antiretroviral and other medicines, such as patents rules in international trade agreements and domestic legislation regulating the price of medicines.
This includes ensuring access to
- comprehensive care, treatment and support for people living with HIV;
- diagnostic tools (such as HIV testing kits), antiretroviral treatment, and other medicines; and
- other kinds of health and support services, including treatment for people with immune systems weakened by HIV, sexual and reproductive health services, addiction treatment, and mental health services.
The path to human rights for all is in view with collaboration, collective advocacy, and community building. To view the 2021-2022 annual report, click here.
Human rights advocates eye legal action against Canadian, German, Norwegian and UK governments over global COVID vaccine inequality Coordinated legal efforts call on “recalcitrant” governments to support proposed waiver of COVID-related intellectual property monopolies at the WTO 25 November 2021 Human rights lawyers have threatened legal action against the German, Norwegian, and Canadian governments today […]
Respect. Protect. Fulfill. You can help challenge wrongs, advance rights, and transform lives. Denied basic healthcare. Criminalized and vilified for love. Unfairly targeted by police. These abuses, and more, are too often the experience of people living with HIV and of communities affected by HIV. At the HIV Legal Network, our mission has always been […]
Seizing the moment to push for concrete and lasting change.
The HIV Legal Network is a proud signatory of this open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging him to support global access to COVID-19 vaccines. March 10, 2021 SENT VIA EMAIL The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada Re: Canada must support global access to COVID-19 vaccines at the WTO Dear Prime […]
On November 15, 2020, the Legal Network sent this letter to the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion, and International Trade, and the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, urging them to support a proposal currently before the WTO’s TRIPS Council (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) to waive stringent […]
We are one of 379 civil society organizations from around the world that have signed onto a letter supporting the proposal to waive WTO intellectual property rules on patents, trade secrets, industrial designs and copyright for COVID-19 technology (such as medicines, vaccines, masks, and ventilators). Your organization can sign on here. CIVIL SOCIETY […]
Guided by the past and working toward the future as we challenge wrongs, advance rights, and transform lives.
Highlights of our work in Canada and around the world from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019.
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) and the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO), are jointly intervening in a landmark case before the Court of Appeal for Ontario regarding whether doctors can put their personal religious beliefs ahead of patients’ rights to health care.
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network promotes the human rights of people living with, at risk of or affected by HIV or AIDS, in Canada and internationally, through research and analysis, litigation and other advocacy, public education and community mobilization. Since the 2012 publication of the final report of the Global Commission on HIV and the […]
This submission by the Legal Network, HALCO and PASAN details the rights of prisoners to the equivalent access to health care as people in the community and urges the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services to ensure these rights. We call on the Ministries to make […]
The Legal Network joined organizations across North America to call for a re-negotiated NAFTA to protect access to affordable medicine.
“The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network welcomes this opportunity to provide submissions to the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade (the “Committee”) as part of its upcoming consultations regarding the priorities of Canadian stakeholders having an interest in bilateral and trilateral trade in North America between Canada, the United States and Mexico. “Given the […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 11, 2017 – Growing public opposition to the expansive corporate privileges at the heart of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took centre stage as the fourth round of NAFTA talks began today in Washington, D.C. U.S., Mexican and Canadian civil society organizations delivered more than 400,000 petitions demanding that NAFTA’s […]
Canada continues to engage in discussions about reviving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), even though the US has now withdrawn. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has joined with other civil society organizations to release an open letter to the governments of the remaining TPP countries, calling on them to abandon the TPP in its current form.
“The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network welcomes this opportunity to provide submissions to Global Affairs Canada on the scope of the renegotiation and modernization of the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “Given the potential impact, domestically and globally, of a new trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, this briefing focuses on how […]
“We write to you in advance of Canada’s meeting with senior trade officials from TPP countries on May 2–3 in Toronto to map out the future of the agreement in light of the United States’ withdrawal. This meeting presents a critical opportunity for Canada to demonstrate human rights leadership—both nationally and globally. “As it stands, […]
It is clear that the withdrawal of the United States means that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as previously negotiated is dead. As representatives of many millions of people in a wide range of unions, civil society groups and social movements, we believe that the TPP text, negotiated in secret, served the interests of large […]
By Richard Elliott, Executive Director, and Nicholas Caivano, Policy Analyst, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network February 1, 2017 Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and declared his intention to renegotiate NAFTA. But as some try to revive the TPP, and trade talks between Ottawa and Washington heat up, Canada should […]
“The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network welcomes this opportunity to provide submissions to the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade on the subject of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).” In the brief The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Trading Away Access to Affordable Medicines, we “set out […] a number of specific concerns about how provisions in the TPP will […]
A high-level body of eminent persons advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released its report today declaring that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and similar agreements ratcheting up intellectual property protection and enforcement, endanger countries’ efforts to ensure access to medicines and other health technologies and run counter to their human rights obligations. The High-Level Panel’s report […]
By Richard Elliott, Executive Director, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network September 13, 2016 Later this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to release at the UN in New York the much-anticipated, and already controversial, report of his High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines. The Secretary-General appointed his High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines in November […]
When International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau took up her post in November 2015, she was tasked with leading Canada’s efforts to “provide humanitarian assistance to help reduce poverty and inequality in the world” and refocusing Canada’s development assistance “on helping the poorest and most vulnerable.” This renewed focus on marginalized communities must underlie the current […]
“The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network welcomes this opportunity to provide our perspectives on the government’s priorities for establishing an international assistance policy and funding framework. When International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau took up her post in November 2015, she was tasked with leading Canada’s efforts to ‘provide humanitarian assistance to help reduce poverty and inequality in the world’ and […]
“As civil society organizations concerned about access to medicines, in your three countries and globally, we write to you in advance of your North American Leaders’ Summit in Ottawa on June 29. The summit is an important opportunity to demonstrate human rights leadership—nationally, regionally and globally—in the Americas. “In February of this year, the United […]
Toronto, November 30, 2015 — In a briefing paper released to parliamentarians in advance of World AIDS Day (December 1), the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network is calling on the new federal government to take decisive steps to address the HIV epidemic, both in Canada and abroad. Laying out five key areas and recommending associated actions, […]
It is time for Canada to re-commit to the global project of ending HIV, including by basing our response on sound scientific evidence and fundamental human rights principles.
November 13, 2015 Last week, the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement was finally made public. Running to more than 6000 pages, it raises a host of grave concerns about its impact on everything from environmental protection to labour and other human rights, from internet privacy to food safety… and much more, including access […]
“We write to you as Canadian civil society organizations concerned about access to medicines, in Canada and globally. A number of us are members of the Global Treatment Access Group (GTAG), a working group bringing together various Canadian organizations advocating for greater access to medicines, and other aspects of the human right to the highest attainable standard of health, in […]
This is the second in a series of blog posts being published by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network ahead of Election Day on October 19, 2015. Recently, we sent a questionnaire to the five major federal parties, asking their position on key questions related to HIV and human rights. Four out of five parties responded. […]
On October 19, 2015, Canada’s voters have an opportunity to decide what kind of government they want — one that has regard for evidence and upholds health and human rights for all, or one that perpetuates outmoded and ill-informed policies
For the last five years, Canada and 11 other countries have been secretly negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), often described as “NAFTA on steroids.” Among many other concerns, health groups have been sounding the alarm that access to affordable medicines for millions of people in the negotiating countries could be one of those things traded […]
“Ever since talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) began over five years ago, there have been broad public calls on leaders to make negotiations more transparent and open to the public. In statements, in letters, and in face-to-face meetings with trade representatives, we have urged the adoption of concrete practices that would better enable the kind of open […]
“It is our understanding that Canada will host the next negotiating round of the Trans‐Pacific Partnership, including Chief Negotiators meetings, in Ottawa in early July…. [I]t is critical that Canada ensures and facilitates opportunities for civil society stakeholder engagement with negotiators during the Ottawa round of negotiations….”
“We, the undersigned organizations and activists from the global South and North, are writing to urge the Global Fund to abandon its attempt to launch a “blue-ribbon Task Force” that will focus primarily on developing a global multi-tiered pricing framework for middle-income countries (MICs), which we believe would permanently undermine access to more affordable medicines, […]
“On behalf of advocates for universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), we write to express our concerns about the Fourth Conference on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECAAC) which is being organized with great influence from its host, the government of the Russian […]
“[W]e would like … to ask UNAIDS to call on the United Nations General Assembly to convene a High Level Meeting before September 2015 to assess progress toward the achievement of the goals in the 2011 Political Declaration and to renew the commitments to achieve Universal Access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in […]
“We are Canadian civil society organizations committed to the basic principle that access to medicines and to health care should be equitable, based on need and not on ability to pay, whether at home or around the world. Medicines should not be a luxury. We call on the Government of Canada to reject any proposals […]
Judging the epidemic has been prepared as a resource to help judges, magistrates, arbitrators and other judicial officers throughout the world adjudicate cases involving HIV-related issues. This handbook may also be used by judicial trainers and ministries of justice to deliver educational programmes to judges and magistrates on legal issues related to HIV and human […]
