Title: Criminalising Contagion: Legal and Ethical Challenges of Disease Transmission and the criminal law
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Should a person that passes on an infection such as HIV/Aids or herpes or causes a child to inherit a genetic disease be treated as a criminal, in the same way as someone that injures another? For many people the criminal law might appear to be an appropriate tool for punishing and deterring such behaviour. But is this recourse to criminalisation really the most appropriate response in this context? The use of criminal law to respond to infectious disease transmission has implications for a number of professional and public organisations. It presupposes, for example, that people who infect others can be identified by the police, prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service and effectively and fairly brought to justice in a criminal court applying the law. This process involves a potentially difficult relationship between the organs of criminal justice and public health bodies, whose agendas and priorities may not necessarily coincide. It is to address these concerns that this Seminar Series bring together researchers, healthcare professionals, diseases charities and practitioners concerned with the creation and enforcement of criminal laws on disease transmission, with a view to producing outputs for dissemination to both academic and non-academic (policy-oriented) beneficiaries. Confirmed participants include: a) international and national academic scholars from criminal law/criminal justice and healthcare law and ethics backgrounds, who will contribute their expertise on the difficulties and limitations of using criminal law in a public health context, b) healthcare professionals and research institutions practising in public and sexual health, c) Nazir Afzal, National Director of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), d) representatives of a number of national charities working with people with infectious diseases, e) media representation from the BBC, f) the Law Commission (criminal law team, represented by Professor David Ormerod). We also aim to involve representatives of the Department of Health. The aim of the four seminars that comprise this series is to bring together a broad spectrum of expertise to produce research that is at once critical, innovative and informative, and that advances knowledge on law and policy on the topic of criminalising disease. The critical edge is ensured by the combination of eminent as well as more junior academic experts who are invited to present original work on specified questions. In this series, such questions include: a) are criminal sanctions ever the most appropriate response to infection?; is its appropriateness affected by the intimacy of certain relationships (such as ties of love and blood)?; what are the limits of criminalisation? (seminar 1); b) how are notions of risk and moral panic with regard to public health anxieties to be understood? (seminar 2); is there a need to legislate for the criminalisation of disease, and if so on what basis should this proceed? (seminar 3); are the offences currently used to criminalise disease being enforced and prosecuted in the fairest and most appropriate way? (seminar 4). Being inter-disciplinary as well as inter-professional, the seminars are designed to provide a critical space for these questions to be addressed through paper presentations as well as by debate and discussion involving all participants. We are keen to embrace innovative methods for delivering the objectives of the project by combining a number of stimulating formats for discussion and debate across the four seminars. Our seminar format is designed to maximise the benefits of the inter-disciplinary and inter-professional meetings. Finally, the Seminar Series is informative in the sense that, as well being productive of critical proposals for policy and legislative reform, the seminars and outputs (detailed below) will be a valuable source of information on current theory and practice.


Research activity codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: INFECTION