Mental Health And Human Rights

Provides practical solutions for ending coercion in mental health care and realizing the universal right to legal capacity.

People with mental disorders often suffer the worst conditions of life.This book is the first comprehensive survey of the mental health/human rights relationship. It examines the relationships and histories of mental health and human rights, and their interconnections with law, culture, ethnicity, class, economics, biology, and stigma.

This book explores the human rights consequences of recent and ongoing revisions of mental health legislation in England and Ireland. Presenting a critical discussion of the World Health Organization's 'Checklist on Mental Health Legislation' from its Resource Book on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation, the author uses this checklist as a frame-work for analysis to examine the extent to which mental health legislation complies with the WHO human rights standards. The author also examines recent case-law from the European Court of Human Rights, and looks in depth at the implications of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for mental health law in England and Ireland. Focusing on dignity, human rights and mental health law, the work sets out to determine to what extent, if any, human rights concerns have influenced recent revisions of mental health legislation, and to what extent recent developments in mental health law have assisted in protecting and promoting the human rights of the mentally ill. The author seeks to articulate better, clearer and more connected ways to protect and promote the rights of the mentally ill though both law and policy.

This publication highlights key issues and principles to be considered in the drafting, adoption and implementation of mental health legislation and best practice in mental health services. It contains examples of diverse experiences and practices, as well as extracts of laws and other legal documents from a range of different countries, and a checklist of key policy components. Three main elements of effective mental health legislation are identified, relating to context, content and process.

Integrates research, theory, and practice in supported decision-making and describes implications for supports provision in the disability field.

This book explores the law relating to the right to liberty of people with mental illness and international human rights standards. It is also a manifesto for change, urging reconsideration of the protection and promotion of the human rights of people with mental illness. Covers all UK jurisdictions plus Ireland.

This is the definitive textbook on global mental health, an emerging priority discipline within global health, which places priority on improving mental health and achieving equity in mental health for all people worldwide.

This book delineates the scope of permissible compulsory mental health interventions under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The initial impetus for this study was provided by a conflict between two competing positions within the current debate over the future of coercive psychiatry. According to one position, defended by the CRPD Committee, among others, compulsory mental health care necessarily violates the prohibition of discrimination. According to the competing position, supported by the vast majority of states, compulsion is sometimes necessary to protect health and life and, if coupled with appropriate legal safeguards, it is lawful under such circumstances. This book disputes both positions and argues that the scope of permissible compulsory care can be identified using proportionality reasoning. Drawing on the work of Robert Alexy, it develops a framework for proportionality assessments within the context of non-discrimination. The framework can assist decision-makers to design principled and evidence-based mental health care regimes. This book thus provides a new way forward for states parties looking to reform their mental health care regimes and to improve compliance with the CRPD. It will appeal to academics and practitioners engaged in mental health reform in the post-CRPD era.