An effective response necessitates that the human rights of people infected and affected by HIV are protected. This element is based on 40 questions included in the UN reporting process and captures the degree to which human rights have been mainstreamed into the AIDS response. While this element reflects the degree to which legal frameworks that structure the response to AIDS consider human rights, it does not measure how well these rights are respected in the implementation of AIDS policy – nor does it necessarily reflect the human rights cultures of countries more generally.

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This element has the third highest overall mean score, with little variation in the means score depending on country income levels or types of epidemics. The most striking finding is that Human Rights Mainstreaming is positively linked to Coordination (element 5) and Civil Society (element 6). Countries with high scores on one of these are likely to also score well on the other two. This might suggest an interesting set of mutually reinforcing effects between a well-coordinated state response and an active civil society steeped in a human rights culture. This pattern is found in all sub-groups of countries with the exception of those with generalized epidemics - where such virtuous effects between governance institutions (coordination) and governance culture (participation and human rights) would be most sorely needed.