The world's decades-long response to HIV is at an inflection point. The 2024 UNAIDS global report, The Urgency of Now, demonstrated that the world now has the means to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Midway to the 2025 milestone set in June 2021, the global HIV response has moved closer to the goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, a commitment enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Fewer people acquired HIV in 2023 than at any point since the late 1980s. Despite successes, the world is not on track to end AIDS by 2030. At this historic crossroads, the path the world takes—towards ending AIDS, or towards a future of needless illness, death and unending costs—depends on political will. How to end AIDS as a public health threat is not in doubt. This report focuses on the essentials—the central role of human rights as it relates to ensuring access to HIV prevention and treatment services and addressing the structural determinants that increase vulnerability to HIV. An approach grounded in human rights is vital for the collective HIV response to be robust, person-centred and sustainable. HIV services will reach people in need only if their human rights are upheld; if discriminatory and harmful laws are removed; and if stigma, discrimination and violence are effectively tackled.