Intimacy and Responsibility

This is a fascinating book, which extends effortlessly across disciplinary boundaries to argue a controversial and, at first sight, very difficult case. Starting from his origins in law, Weait takes in biology, philosophy, public health and the sociology of sexual behaviour. In brief, his argument is that it is not appropriate to prosecute people for the harm of infecting others with HIV, partly because of the peculiar nature of this harm, and partly because of the damage that such prosecutions do to the fight against the disease. He starts by setting the scene, narrating the history of the epidemic in Britain, the United Nations guidelines on human rights and HIV/AIDS, a case in which the European Court of Human Rights accepted the legitimacy of some restrictions on people who are HIV-positive, and some inconclusive British government consultations which basically took a similar line. He then outlines cases in which 14 people have been tried for charges relating to the transmission of HIV in the UK, several of them receiving lengthy prison sentences of up to 10 years

Argument (complex analysis · Criminology · Government (linguistics · Harm · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Human rights · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Prison · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Human Rights and Development · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Sex work and related issues · Virology