Grant: Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant: Knowledge Translation

The symposium will open on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 with a day-long skills-building workshop on media training focussed on the issue of the criminalization of HIV transmission and exposure. The following day, Friday June 11th, the Symposium program will consist of three plenary presentations that will bring together lawyers, judges, health researchers, students, ASOs/CBOs, and PHAs to discuss and debate, from various perspectives, key legal developments related to HIV and relevant research. Possible topics currently under discussion include, but are not limited to: - criminalization and HIV non-disclosure; - HIV-related travel restrictions and immigration policies; - housing rights and HIV-related vulnerability; - women's rights: an international and comparative assessment of legal issue; - developments in Canadian prostitution laws. The day will close with an evening lecture, open to the public, presented by a high-profile keynote speaker addressing the audience on an HIV-related legal/human rights issue. At the moment, we are approaching such potential speakers as Dr. Michel Kazatchkine (executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria); Dr. Mary Robinson, (past President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights); Dr. Louise Arbour (former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights); Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada. The evening will also be the occasion of announcing the Canadian and international recipients of the 2010 Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, awarded jointly by the Legal Network and Human Rights Watch. A cocktail reception will conclude the evening. The first half of Saturday June 12th, 2010 will close the Symposium. There will be one final panel session, followed by the Legal Network's 2010 Annual General Meeting and closing remarks by a keynote speaker.