Taking the blame: criminal law, social responsibility and the sexual transmission of HIV

Abstract

Traditional criminal law scholarship in the field of offences against the person fails adequately to problematize core concepts, such as responsibility, harm and causation. This article considers different ways in which we might think about such concepts, by exploring questions relating to responsibility for the sexual transmission of HIV. It is argued that the complex meanings associated with HIV transmission are inadequately captured if we think of it simply as a corporeal harm inflicted on one person by another,and that lawyers should be open to alternative interpretations of the harm which transmission represents.