The law plays an important role in public health responses to HIV and in the health and wellbeing of people living with HIV. However, it has been over thirty years since the last major formal review of the legal environment surrounding HIV in Australia. This report presents the results of a legal mapping review that aims to advance our understanding of the contemporary legal environment surrounding HIV in Australia. 

Through a structured analysis of legal disputes and issues, a map is provided of the main areas of law in which HIV arises and identifies HIV-related legal issues of concern. It finds that HIV-related legal matters emerge across a broad spectrum of public and private law areas, including anti-discrimination law, negligence, insurance law, family law, compensation, administration law, social security law, industrial relations law and more. These matters extend well beyond the area of criminal law, which has been the major focus of HIV-related legal research and advocacy to date. 

At the same time, the prosecution of people living with HIV for transmission-related offences remains a feature of the criminal law. The review found that HIV-related matters emerge most prominently in the areas of migration law, refugee law and in the criminal law. The rise of migration-related matters reflects restrictions imposed by Australian migration law, including the operation of the migration-related health requirement. This review of cases and disputes provides the most comprehensive mapping of HIV and the law in Australia since the advent of U=U (‘undetectable=untransmittable’). It includes a preliminary discussion of the implications of the review’s findings, and may inform future law reform and policy.