Interview with South African Justice Edwin Cameron
Bearing Witness
During his U.S. book tour for Witness to AIDS,Justice Edwin Cameron talks with Alina Oswald about coming out as positive, fighting AIDS denialism in South Africa, and counter 
ing the stigma of HIV with hope
AIDS is a disease. It is an infection, a syndrome, an illness, a disorder, a condition threatening to human life. It is an epidemic-a social crisis, an economic catastrophe, a political challenge, a human disaster," Justice Edwin Cameron states, reading from his new book, Witness to AIDS, at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City this past October.
Called "a beacon of inspiration" and "a fighter" by some members of the audience, Edwin Cameron is an internationally recognized human-rights and AIDS activist, and a Judge of Appeal on the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa. After living with HIV for several years, he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1997. Two years later, Justice Cameron became the first public official to reveal his HIV-positive status in South Africa.
Born in 1953, in Pretoria, South Africa, Edwin Cameron studied at Stellenbosch University, Oxford, and the University of South Africa, winning top academic awards at all three universities. In 1983, he joined the Johannesburg Bar; in 1986, he started practicing as a human-rights lawyer at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of Witwatersrand. While at CALS, he codrafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, cofounded the AIDS Consortium, and founded the AIDS Law Project, also serving as its first director (www.alp.org.za). A gay man, he also worked successfully to include sexual orientation protections in the South African Constitution. He became a High Court judge in 1995. Though he had become an AIDS expert over the years, Cameron did not disclose that he was positive until 1999; he believes he contracted HIV sometime in 1986.
"Witness to AIDS is a story of hope," Cameron tells me when we get to talk, "because it recedes the stigma and the fear of this disease, because it shows people that AIDS is medically manageable. I'm living proof of it."
During his U.S. book tour for Witness to AIDS,Justice Edwin Cameron talks with Alina Oswald about coming out as positive, fighting AIDS denialism in South Africa, and counter
AIDS is a disease. It is an infection, a syndrome, an illness, a disorder, a condition threatening to human life. It is an epidemic-a social crisis, an economic catastrophe, a political challenge, a human disaster," Justice Edwin Cameron states, reading from his new book, Witness to AIDS, at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City this past October.
Called "a beacon of inspiration" and "a fighter" by some members of the audience, Edwin Cameron is an internationally recognized human-rights and AIDS activist, and a Judge of Appeal on the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa. After living with HIV for several years, he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1997. Two years later, Justice Cameron became the first public official to reveal his HIV-positive status in South Africa.
Born in 1953, in Pretoria, South Africa, Edwin Cameron studied at Stellenbosch University, Oxford, and the University of South Africa, winning top academic awards at all three universities. In 1983, he joined the Johannesburg Bar; in 1986, he started practicing as a human-rights lawyer at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of Witwatersrand. While at CALS, he codrafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, cofounded the AIDS Consortium, and founded the AIDS Law Project, also serving as its first director (www.alp.org.za). A gay man, he also worked successfully to include sexual orientation protections in the South African Constitution. He became a High Court judge in 1995. Though he had become an AIDS expert over the years, Cameron did not disclose that he was positive until 1999; he believes he contracted HIV sometime in 1986.
"Witness to AIDS is a story of hope," Cameron tells me when we get to talk, "because it recedes the stigma and the fear of this disease, because it shows people that AIDS is medically manageable. I'm living proof of it."