Aids, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the Criminal Law

Abstract

This paper, whilst it will address some specific issues arising out of the Crimes Bill 1989, is concerned with a wider range of questions. First, I will outline briefly the of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (hereinafter STDs) in their medical and epidemiological contexts. It does not require much intelligence to acknowledge the consequential impact of the AIDS and STD problem on legal theory in general.Difficulties exist in relation to criminal law because the problem throws up again in a highly sensitive and emotionally charged context the debates about the proper limits of coercive state action, about the interrelation between law and morality in terms reminiscent of the famous and, some thought, dated Hart-Devlin dialogue, and about the interrelation between criminal law and public health law. The second section of the paper will concern itself with some of these issues, and will seek to establish workable guidelines for a practical theory. In the third section I shall examine the existing criminal and quasi-criminal (or public health) provisions relevant to the problem. Fourthly, I shall examine how the Crimes Bill alters or confirms the position.