Overview
Japan has no HIV-specific law, and there has been no reported HIV criminalisation case in Japan to date.
Japan does have a history of legal action based on HIV transmission resulting from the “tainted blood scandal” (yakugai eizu jiken) of the 1980s, which involved the sale of unheated blood products despite awareness that those products could transmit HIV. Almost half of the population of people with haemophilia living in Japan acquired HIV. Numerous decision-makers were charged, including senior government officials, officials from the blood-product supply company and a leading doctor, with many of them convicted. A number of the accused were jailed, and damages were paid to plaintiffs, with the last civil suit settled in 2011.
This information was last reviewed in March 2020
