Law Commons^™

There is a strong evidence base that the stigma, discrimination and criminalization affecting adolescent key populations is intensified due to domestic and international legal constructs that rely on law-enforcement based interventions dependent upon arrest, pre-trial detention, incarceration and compulsory ‘‘rehabilitation’’ in institutional placement. While there exists evidence and rights-based technical guidelines for interventions among older cohorts, these guidelines have not yet been embraced by international public health actors for fear that international law applies different standards to adolescents who engage in behaviours such as selling sex or injecting drugs.

As a matter of international human rights, health, juvenile justice and …