In 1985, the approval of HIV antibody tests opened the way for many countries to impose AIDS-related restrictions to international traveling. In the following months, more than 50 states introduced rules aiming, according to their promoters, at protecting populations supposed to be “AIDS-free” at the time, or at sparing them the cost of taking care of future AIDS patients. However, the WHO as well as many NGOs and governments quickly criticized these restrictions as counter-productive as far as public health was concerned, and discriminatory on an ethical and legal ground – initiating an international controversy which escalated as the world order was rapidly changing at the end of the 1980s. The intensity of the dispute, the oppositions it created on the diplomatic scene and the new coalitions that were built around it, exceed the sole ambition to stop HIV from crossing borders.