Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, Anand Grover, Human Rights Council, Fourteenth Session, Agenda Item 3, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/14/20 (Apr. 20, 2010)

This report, submitted to the Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, examines the relationship between the UN recognized right to the highest attainable standard of health and the criminalization of consensual sexual conduct such as same-sex conduct, sex work, and HIV exposure. The report states that criminalization of consensual same sex conduct infringes rights to privacy and effects the right to health, criminalization of sex work causes unsafe working conditions and leads to a lack of recourse for occupational health issues, and the criminalization of HIV exposure fails to realize legitimate public health or safety aims and, if applied at all, should only be done in cases of malicious transmission. The Special Rapporteur ultimately concludes that decriminalization of the aforementioned issues along with other measures are necessary as a part of a comprehensive right-to-health approach.