1. ‘In South Africa, an unlikely leader on AIDS’New York Times 10 May 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/africa/15zuma.html.

2. SAfAIDS ‘Zimbabwe: Circumcision drive targets cabinet ministers’ available at http://www.safaids.net/content/zimbabwe-circumcision-drive-targets-cabinet-ministers.

3. Ibid.

4. We are indebted to Thérèse Murphy for this insight.

5. Fox, M and Thomson, M ‘Short changed?: the law and ethics of male circumcision’ (2005) 13 International Journal of Children's Rights 161 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 167.

6. Re J (Specific Issue Orders: Muslim Upbringing and Circumcision) (1999) 2 FLR 678 (Fam Div); Re J (Child's Religious Upbringing and Circumcision)[2000] 1 FLR 571 (CA); Re S (Children) (Specific Issue: Religion: Circumcision) [2005] 1 FLR 236.

7. We would therefore locate this paper within a recent trend of challenging the traditional parameters of the discipline of medical law. As Dickenson has observed, ‘the individualistic slant of medical law, which tends to focus narrowly on a doctor-patient dyad’ is ill-equipped to deal with the broader implications of many forms of research and interventions on the human body, given the multiple interests involved. Dickenson, D Body Shopping: Converting Body Parts to Profit (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008)Google Scholar p 36. See also Fee, E and Krieger, N ‘Understanding Aids: historical interpretations and the limits of biomedical individualism’ (1993) 10 American Journal of Public Health 1477 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Neill, O ‘Public health or clinical ethics: thinking beyond borders’ (2002) 16 Ethics and International Affairs 35 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. As we have detailed elsewhere, in our view the discipline should be more broadly conceptualised as Health Law or Healthcare Law – see Sheldon, S and Thomson, M ‘Introduction’ in Sheldon, and Thomson, (eds) Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Law (London: Cavendish, 1998)Google Scholar; Fletcher, R, Fox, M and McCandless, J ‘Legal embodiment: analysing the body of healthcare law’ (2008) 16 Med LR 321 Google Scholar.

8. As Freedman argues, ‘public health allows us to go beyond isolated anecdotes or incidents and to see social patterns and configurations associated with what is experienced as individual phenomena of death, disability or disease’. Freedman, L ‘Reflections on emerging frameworks of health and human rights’ in Mann, JM et al (eds) Health and Human Rights: A Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar p 246. See also Coggon, J ‘Public health, responsibility and English law: are there such things as no smoke without fire or needless clean needles’ (2009) 17 Med LR 127 Google Scholar at 133. As recently as 1996 Brazier and Harris noted that ‘public health barely features as an issue in “medical law” texts or literature in the United Kingdom’. Brazier, M and Harris, J ‘Public health and private lives’ (1996) 4 Med LR 171 Google Scholar at 173.

9. Martin, R ‘Implementing public health policy and practice within a legal framework: constraints of culture, faith and belief’ (2009) 9 Medical Law International 311 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murphy, T and Whitty, N ‘Is human rights prepared? risk, rights and public health emergencies’ (2009) 17 Med LR 219 Google Scholar; Gostin, L ‘Legal foundations of public health law and its role in meeting future challenges’ (2006) Public Health 1 Google Scholar; Harrington, JA ‘Commentary on “Legal foundations of public health law and its role in meeting future challenges”’ (2006) Public Health 9 Google Scholar.

10. See Nuffield Council on Bioethics The Ethics of Clinical Research in Developing Countries (1999); The Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries (2002); The Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries: a Follow Up Discussion Paper (2005).

11. Dowsett, GW and Couch, M ‘Male circumcision and Hiv prevention: is there really enough of the right kind of evidence?’ (2007) 15 (29) Reproductive Health Matters 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 40.

12. As the MMR saga demonstrates vividly, see Goldacre, B Bad Science (London: Fourth Estate, 2008)Google Scholar chs 11 and 15.

13. C Paton Inventing AIDS (New York: Routledge, 1990) ch 2.

14. Angell, M ‘the ethics of clinical research in the third world’ (1997) 337 (12) New England Journal of Medicine 847 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, E Medical Law: Text, Case and Materials (Oxford: OUP, 2nd edn, 2010)Google Scholar pp 486–493.

15. See Coggan, J ‘Does public health have a personality (and if so, does it matter if you don't like it)?’ (2010) 19 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 235 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Yet even in the USA the popularity of the procedure is declining. In the mid-1980s 84–89% of men in the USA were estimated to be circumcised – American Academy of Paediatrics Task Force on Circumcision Circumcision Policy Statement (1999) (103) (3) 686–693. Later estimates suggested that for some years circumcision rates remained relatively stable at around 60–65% in the white population but with a growth in popularity in black communities to similar levels – Nelson, CP et al ‘the increasing incidence of newborn circumcision: data from the nationwide inpatient sample’ (2005) 173 (3) Journal of Urology 978–981 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It has, however, been claimed that the rate has fallen precipitously in the years 2006–2009, so that fewer than half of boys born in US hospitals are now circumcised – see R Caryn Rabin ‘Steep drop seen in circumcisions in US’New York Times 16 August 2010.

17. In 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) stated that available data were not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision ( AAP ‘Circumcision policy statement’ (1999) 103 Pediatrics 686 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). This was reaffirmed in 2005 after publication of the results of the South African trial (AAP‘Aap publications retired and reaffirmed’ (2005) 116 Pediatrics 796). The Paediatrics and Child Health Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians' Policy Statement on Circumcision (Sydney: RACP, 2004) states that ‘there is no medical indication for routine male circumcision’, available at http://www.racp.edu.au/hpu/paed/circumcision/print.htm.

18. Royal Dutch Medical Association Non-Therapeutic Circumcision on Male Minors (2010) available at http://knmg.artsennet.nl/Diensten/knmgpublicaties/KNMGpublicatie/Nontherapeutic-circumcision-of-male-minors-2010.htm. The Royal Australian College of Physicians released a new position paper in September 2010. This paper takes a far less critical stance on the procedure, restating parental rights in this matter. RACP ‘Circumcision of infant males’, available at http://www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=D7FAA93E-E091-4209-15657544BA419672.

19. As Harrington has pointed out to us, Africa, with its AIDS pandemic and history of colonial and post-colonial governance is an ideal site for public health policies to be pioneered and then transferred back – see Harrington, J ‘Law and the commodification of healthcare in Tanzania’ (2003) Law, Social Justice & Global Development Google Scholar, available at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2003_2/harrington. In the current context, Darby and Svoboda have argued that part of the drive for circumcision in Africa can be explained by a desire to reverse the decline in the practice in the USA – see R Darby and S Svoboda ‘A rose by any other name: symmetry and asymmetry in male and female genital cutting’ in Zabus, C (ed) Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies around Excision and Circumcision (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar pp 251–297.

20. P Shishkin ‘Circumcision decreases the risk of contracting STDs, study says’Wall Street Journal New York, 26 March 2009, available at http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB123802256715541879.html.

21. Montgomery, J ‘Medicalizing crime – criminalizing health? The role of law’ in Erin, C and Ost, S (eds) The Criminal Justice System and Health Care (Oxford: OUP, 2007)Google Scholar pp 257 and 267.

22. Bonner, K ‘Male circumcision as an Hiv control strategy: not a “natural condom”’ (2001) 9 Reproductive Health Matters 143 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 150. Bonner cites an Australian Report on HIV/AIDS which recommended ‘routine neonatal circumcision at least in Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander communities’. Kault, D ‘Assessing the national Hiv/Aids strategy evaluation’ (1996) 20 Australia New Zealand Journal of Public Health 347 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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26. Gollaher, above n 25; Darby, above n 25.

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30. Fink, above n 23; Szabo, T and Short, RV ‘How does male circumcision protect against Hiv infection?’ (2000) 85(1) BMJ 19 Google Scholar.

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32. Dowsett and Couch, above n 11, p 34 (references omitted).

33. Auvert, BD et al ‘Randomised, controlled intervention trial of male circumcision for reduction of Hiv infection risk: the Anrs 1265 trial’ (2005) 11 PLoS Medicine 2 Google Scholar, e298 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.002098.

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36. South Africa 61%, Uganda 53%, Kenya 51%. This averages at 55% although it is notable that it is usually the South African figure that is standardised and typically cited.

37. WHO/UNAIDS ‘New data on male circumcision and HIV prevention: policy and programme implications’ (2007), available at http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2007/mc_recommendations_en.pdf.

38. We would suggest that, while space precludes a full consideration here, the role of such private philanthropic organisations in this arena merits further scrutiny. For all the plaudits it has attracted, the Gates Foundation has been criticised for its lack of transparency or accountability, while its commitment to peer review of grant making has been questioned – see L White ‘Tipping the balance’Sunday Times 3 July 2005; A Beckett ‘Inside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’Guardian 12 July 2010. Furthermore, as Booth has argued, homogenising constructions of Africa as ‘desperate’, ‘needy’ and dependent on intervention by international bodies, omits any ‘acknowledgement of US and Western European participation in creating and worsening the various disasters faced by many of the countries hosting [various HIV related] trials’– see Booth, K ‘Magic bullet for the “African” mother? Neo-imperial reproductive futurism and the pharmaceutical “solution” to the Hiv/Aids crisis’ (2010) 17 Social Politics 349 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 365.

39. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009; (2):CD003362, doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD003362.pub2.

40. RS Van Howe and MR Storms ‘How the “circumcision solution” in Africa will increase HIV infections’ (paper on file with authors).

41. The absence of an adequate information base for public health interventions is a pervasive problem in the field. For instance, in the UK the Wanless Report noted that: ‘Although there is often evidence on the scientific justification for action and for some specific interventions, there is generally little evidence about the cost-effectiveness of public health and preventative policies or their practical implementation. Research in this area can be technically difficult and there is a lack of depth and expertise in the core disciplines. This, coupled with a lack of funding of public health intervention research and slower acceptance of economic perspectives within public health, all contribute to the dearth of evidence of cost-effectiveness. This has led to the introduction of a very wide range of initiatives, often with unclear objectives and little quantification of outcomes and it has meant it is difficult to sustain support for initiatives, even those which are successful’. D Wanless Securing Good Health for the Whole Population (London: Department of Health, 2004) Summary ch 5. The report also deplored the ‘very poor information base’ and noted the ‘lack of conclusive evidence for action’. See also McHale, J ‘Law, regulation and public health research: a case for fundamental reform?’ Current Legal Problems (2010) 63 Google Scholar 475.

42. Epstein, S Impure Science: AIDS, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)Google ScholarPubMed p 32.

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45. Green, LW et al ‘Male circumcision and Hiv prevention: insufficient evidence and neglected external validity’ (2010) Am J Prev Med 39(5) 479 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. A US study has illustrated the impact of partner prevalence of HIV on the association of circumcision and AIDS infection status. Analysis of the data concluded that it was difficult to detect a protective effect from HIV in a setting where there was a lower prevalence of HIV in the partner ‘pool’– L Warner et al ‘Male circumcision and risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men attending Baltimore STD clinics: An evaluation of clinic-based data’ Society of Epidemiological Research Meeting 21–24 June 2006, Seattle, Washington, available at http:///cdc.confex.com/cdc/std2006/techprogram/P11223.HTM.

47. Van Howe and Storms, above n 40.

48. Dowsett and Couch, above n 11, at 36.

49. Van Howe and Storms, above n 40.

50. Wawer, MJ et al ‘Circumcision in Hiv-infected men and its effect on Hiv transmission to female partners in Rakai, Uganda: a randomised controlled trial’ (2009) 374 Lancet 229 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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53. AD Smith et al ‘Men who have sex with men and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa’http://www.thelancet.com published online 20 July 2009 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61118-1.

54. Ibid.

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58. Van Howe and Storm, above n 40.

59. Annas, GJ and Grodin, MA ‘Human rights and maternal-fetal Hiv transmission prevention trials in Africa’ (1998) 88 American Journal of Public Health 561 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 561.

60. AVAC ‘A new way to protect against HIV? Understanding the results of male circumcision studies for HIV prevention’ AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition report (New York: AVAC, 2007) at 9.

61. Epstein, H ‘Aids and the irrational’ (2008) 337 BMJ 1265 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 1266.

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64. ‘HIV-positive men who have sex before circumcision wounds are healed could increase female partners’ infection risk, study says' Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report 7 March 2007. Kevin de Cock, Director of the WHO HIV/AIDS Department, was reported as stating that the data do not ‘derail [the potential usefulness of circumcision] by any means’, but ‘what it does do is to provide a little more insight into the complexities that face us’. See also Bonner, above n 22, at 147; Brewer, DD et al ‘Male and female circumcision associated with prevalent Hiv infections in virgins and adolescents in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania’ (2007) 17 Annals of Epidemiology 217 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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66. Dowsett and Couch, above n 11, p 34.

67. Okwusoa, TM, Guopa, V and Goel, A ‘Male circumcision for prevention of Hiv transmission’ (2009) 374 Lancet 1497 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berer, M ‘Male circumcision for Hiv prevention: what about protecting men's partners?’ (2008) 16 Reproductive Health Matters 171 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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69. Fox and Thomson, above n 5.

70. See, for example, Benatar, M and Benatar, D ‘between prophylaxis and child abuse: the ethics of neonatal male circumcision’ (2003) 3 American Journal of Bioethics 35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and our critique of their position in Fox and Thomson, above n 5.

71. Powers, M and Faden, R Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy (Oxford: OUP, 2006)Google Scholar p 17.

72. Ibid, ch 2.

73. Ibid. Commentators persist in drawing a clear distinction between genital cutting of boys and girls – see for instance CL Annas ‘Irreversible error: the power and prejudice of female genital mutilation’ in Mann et al, above n 8, p 337. However, as Berer notes, ‘the concept of genital integrity is one of the most potent reasons put forward for opposition to female genital mutilation which begs the question of why it does not apply with equal force to male genitalia even if there would be public health benefits from removing men's foreskins en masse’. Berer, M ‘Male circumcision for Hiv transmission: perspectives on gender and sexuality’ (2007) 15 Reproductive Health Matters 45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 47.

74. DeLaet, DL ‘Framing male circumcision as a human rights issue? Contributions over the universality of human rights’ (2009) 8 Journal of Human Rights 405 CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 406.

75. Powers and Faden, above n 71, ch 2. Their approach has similarities with Nussbaum's conception of justice which entails that citizens should be supported in ways that enable them to realise their basic human capacities. Nussbaum, M Sex and Social Justice (New York: OUP, 1999)Google Scholar. These theorists have been criticised for ‘lack[ing] adequate recognition of power relations and the political’ by downplaying the empowering role of struggles by social movements for human rights – see Correa, S, Petchesky, R and Parker, R Sexuality, Health and Human Rights (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar p 152. However, we maintain that approaches grounded in a commitment to social justice can also avoid the exclusionary and oppositional tendencies of rights discourses.

76. Powers and Faden, above n 71, p 15.

77. Ibid, p 31.

78. Baylis, F, Kenny, NP and Sherwin, S ‘a relational account of public health ethics’ (2008) 1 Public Health Ethics 196 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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80. For the historical backdrop to this provision see Harrington, J and Stuttaford, M ‘Introduction’ in Global Health and Human Rights: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

81. In 2008 the UN General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol of the ICESCR allowing individuals or groups to take actions against states for violation of their rights, including the right to health, though this is has yet to come into force – ibid, p 2.

82. Ibid, p 4.

83. See above n 7.

84. Gostin, above n 31, pp 16–17.

85. Gearty, C Can Human Rights Survive? (Cambridge: CUP 2005)Google Scholar ch 2.

86. Ibid, p 9.

87. Corea, Petchesky and Parker, above n 75.

88. U Baxi ‘The place of the human right to health and contemporary approaches to global justice: Some impertinent interrogations’ in Harrington and Stuttaford, above n 80, p 17. See further Baxi, U The Future of Human Rights (New Delhi: OUP, 2002)Google Scholar. See also Gearty, above n 85, p 68. He argues that the emancipatory power of human rights ideals are most likely to be realised and maintained where ‘the rhetoric of human rights is translated into precise and carefully constructed positive rights’. For a discussion of such rights in an international environmental context see Gearty, C, ‘Do human rights help or hinder environmental protection?’ (2010) 1 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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90. Ibid.

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92. R Cook ‘Gender, health and human rights’ in Mann et al, above n 8, p 259.

93. Schloendorff v Society of New York Hospital (1914) 211 NY 124; Collins v Wilcock[1984] 3 All ER 374; Malette v Shulman (1990) 67 DLR (4th) 321.

94. Although in the UK and some Australian states law prohibits even competent adult women from consenting to this procedure. For a discussion of the Australian position see Sullivan, N ‘“the price to pay for our common good”: genital modification and the somatechnologies of cultural (in)difference’ (2007) 13 Social Semiotics 395 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95. Or, indeed, to the fact that the targets are African bodies. See M Fox and M Thomson ‘HIV/AIDS: Male genital cutting and the new discourses of race and masculinity’ in Fineman, M and Thomson, M (eds) Feminism, Masculinity and Law (Dartmouth: Ashgate, forthcoming, 2012)Google Scholar.

96. L Gostin and JM Mann ‘Toward the development of a human rights impact assessment for the formulation of and evaluation of public health policies’ in Mann et al, above n 8, p 65.

97. See Manson, NC and O'Neill, O Re-thinking Informed Consent in Bioethics (Cambridge: CUP, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McHale, above n 41.

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101. Annas and Grodin, above n 59, p 156.

102. Isselmuiden and Faden suggest such a position underpins the CIOMS Guidelines on Medical Research, above n 100, p 368. (The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) is an international NGO established jointly by the WHO and UNESCO. It published international guidance on the ethical principles to govern human experiments in 1993 which were updated in 2002, available at http://www.cioms.ch/publications/layout_guide2002.pdf).

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104. McHale, above n 41, pp 509–510.

105. Montgomery, J ‘Law and the demoralisation of medicine’ (2006) 26 LS 185 Google Scholar at 188.

106. Sawires, SR and others ‘Male circumcision and Hiv/Aids: challenges and opportunities’ (2007) 369, 9562 Lancet 708 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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108. Berer, above n 67, at 171.

109. Berer, above n 73, at 46.

110. C Dugger ‘South Africa redoubles efforts against AIDS’New York Times 25 April 2010.

111. Berer, above n 67, at 174. As she points out, this needs to include much more information than merely crude figures of how many men have been circumcised.

112. These factors of course also heighten the risk that circumcision surgery performed in unhygienic conditions could itself act as a vehicle for HIV transmission.

113. Baeten, JM, Clum, C and Coates, TJ ‘Male circumcision and Hiv benefits and risk for women’ (2009) 374 Lancet 182 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114. Wawer, above n 50.

115. Berer, above n 73, argues that this proposal is ethically indefensible.

116. Nuffield Council on Bioethics Public Health: Ethical Issues (Cambridge: Cambridge Publishers Limited, 2007)Google ScholarPubMed para 2.24.

117. For example, Kalichman, SC ‘Neonatal circumcision for Hiv prevention: cost, culture and behavioural considerations’ (2010) PLoS Med 7(1): e1000219 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.doi:10.1371/journalpmed.1000219. For a contrary view, see Sidler, D, Smith, J and Rode, H ‘Neonatal circumcision does not reduce Hiv/Aids infection rates’ (2008) 98 1(0) South African Medical Journal 762 Google Scholar.

118. Powers and Faden, above n 71, p 165. See also A Nolan ‘The child's right to heath and the courts’ in Harrington and Stuttaford, above n 80.

119. Although see ‘Leading edge, circumcision and circumspection’ (2007) 7 Lancet Infectious Diseases 303.

120. Gable et al, above n 107.

121. See Fox and Thomson ‘Interrogating bodily integrity’ (forthcoming).

122. Powers and Faden, above n 71, at 19. In this context the authors are referring to criminal actions, such as rape, battery and FGM, but as we have argued elsewhere ( Fox, M and Thomson, M ‘Older minors and circumcision: questioning the limits of religious actions’ (2008) 9 Medical Law International 283 CrossRefGoogle Scholar), it is the reluctance of Anglo-American law to conceptualise male circumcision as a criminal action which precludes it being regarded in the same light as female genital cutting or other bodily interventions which attract criminal sanctions.

123. http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/servicios/sida/discurso_de_iniauguracion_de_conferencia_mundial_2010.pdf last accessed. In March 2010 UNAIDS also launched its Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV.

124. http://data.unaids.org/pub/SpeechEXD/2010/20100322_sp_sidibe_faith_en.pdf.

125. Gostin and Mann, above n 96, p 60.

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129. J du Guerny and E Sjoberg ‘Interrelationship between gender relations and the HIV/AIDS epidemic: some possible consideration for policies and programs’ in Mann et al, above n 8.

130. Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS and WHO. AIDS epidemic update (December 2009).

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132. The report of the South African HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communication Survey in 2008 showed that in the age group 20–24, HIV prevalence among males was 5.1% as against 21.1% for females. In the age group 25–29 male pralelence was 15.7% compared with 32.7% for females. http://avert.org/safricastats.htm.

133. P Piot ‘Address to the VIIth Conference on Woman and AIDS’ Dakar Senegal 14–17 December 1998.

134. Booth, above n 38, p 358.

135. Bujra, J and Mkake, SN ‘AIDS activism in Dar es Salaam: Many struggles; a single goal’ in Baylies, C and Bujira, J (eds) AIDS, Sexuality and Gender in Africa: Collective Strategies and Struggles in Tanzania and Zambia (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar p 154.

136. Wawer, above n 50, p 236.

137. Berer, above n 73.

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141. This is comparable to the erasure of women as individuals with interests in their own right in programmes to prevent maternal transmission of HIV to babies. See Annas and Grodin, above n 59; Booth, above n 38. It also, of course, erases non-heterosexual sex.

142. Gable et al, above n 107, p 133.

143. GJ Annas ‘The impact of health policies on human rights: AIDS and TB control’ in Mann et al, above n 8, p 37.

144. Leigh Pigg, S and Adams, V ‘Introduction: the moral object of sex’ in Leigh Pigg, S and Adams, V (eds) Sex in Development: Science, Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005)Google Scholar pp 25–26.

145. S Leigh Pigg ‘Globalizing the facts of life’ in Leigh Pigg and Adams, above n 144, p 59.

146. See for instance Halperin, DT and Bailey, RC ‘Male circumcision and Hiv infection: 10 years and counting’ (1999) 354 Lancet 1813 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

147. A Renton ‘So, would you have your son circumcised?’Observer 5 July 2009.

148. DeLaet, above n 74, at 405.

149. Dowsett and Couch, above n 11, p 40.

150. Brazier and Harris, above n 8, p 173.

151. Esacove, above n 55, p 84.

152. Baxi, above n 88, p 19.

153. Harrington, above n 9, citing Baxi, U ‘Global development and impoverishment’ in Cane, P and Tushnet, M (eds) Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies (Oxford: OUP, 2003)Google Scholar.

154. JM Mann ‘Human rights and AIDS: the future of the pandemic’ in Mann et al, above n 8, p 221.

155. du Guerny and Sjoberg, above n 129, p 204.

156. Dowsett and Couch, above n 11, at 35.

157. Fox, M and Thomson, M ‘Foreskin is a feminist issue’ (2009) 24 Australian Feminist Studies 195 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

158. Gostin, above n 31, ch 1.

159. Some of those who challenge the construction of male circumcision as a private familial matter argue in favour of criminalising the practice, but for reasons outlined elsewhere, we believe this would be counter-productive; see Fox and Thomson, above n 122.

160. Martin, above n 9.

161. Epstein, above n 42, p 3.

162. Freedman, above n. 8.