THE HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC – WHAT’S SECURITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Year 2006, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 49 - 84, 01.07.2006

Zuhal Yeùilyurt Gündüz

Abstract

This article’s main topic is the securitization of HIV/AIDS. The first part of the article deals with the concepts of human security and securitization. Hereby the UN’s 1994 Human Development Report’s new concept of human security will be dealt with, as this concept changed the view to HIV/AIDS immensely. The article will then show the theoretical background of securitization and its implications for HIV/AIDS. Then the UN Security Council meeting on 10 January 2000, in which the Security Council for the first time ever discussed a health issue and the UN Resolution 1308 from 17 July 2000 on “HIV/AIDS and international peacekeeping operations”, will be dealt with. The article will then show the advantages and disadvantages of the securitization of HIV/AIDS. It aims to show that HIV/AIDS – due to its immense ramifications – is not “only” a health problem, but an international relations problem that the world has to face together. HIV/AIDS should be considered as a threat against human security and not a national or global security threat. It has to be dealt with globally in order to fight not the people living with HIV/AIDS, but the virus itself. As health cannot be regarded as standing alone, as poverty and health are interconnected, all circumstances and the social environment have to be taken into account – poverty, inequalities, injustices must be dealt with. Only then will the HIV/AIDS epidemic be reduced

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, securitization, desecuritization, human security, poverty