When people talk about a human rights approach to mental health treatment there are two different systems, and they're not really compatible with each other. The most well known, main-stream,...
When people talk about a human rights approach to mental health treatment there are two different systems, and they're not really compatible with each other.
The most well known, main-stream, approach uses the UDHR. In Europe this flows into the ECHR. This means that people have a right to life; they have a right to liberty; a right to effective remedy; a right not to be discriminated against; etc. But in ECHR there are exemptions. For example, article 5 says:
(e) the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants.
The other approach - more radical, less mainstream - is to use another United Nations convention, the CRPD (convention on rights for people with a disability), in particular using the interpretation of the UN Committee for the CRPD. Under this system you cannot have forced treatment; you cannot have detention for mental illness; you cannot have substituted decision making.
It is possible to have the worst of both worlds, as the U.S. experience with 50 years of deinstitutionalization and de-funding of community-based mental health indicates. I'm sad to hear that the...
It is possible to have the worst of both worlds, as the U.S. experience with 50 years of deinstitutionalization and de-funding of community-based mental health indicates.
I'm sad to hear that the U.K. appears to be proceeding down the same path of abandoning the mentally ill and disabled to carceral treatment.
When people talk about a human rights approach to mental health treatment there are two different systems, and they're not really compatible with each other.
The most well known, main-stream, approach uses the UDHR. In Europe this flows into the ECHR. This means that people have a right to life; they have a right to liberty; a right to effective remedy; a right not to be discriminated against; etc. But in ECHR there are exemptions. For example, article 5 says:
The other approach - more radical, less mainstream - is to use another United Nations convention, the CRPD (convention on rights for people with a disability), in particular using the interpretation of the UN Committee for the CRPD. Under this system you cannot have forced treatment; you cannot have detention for mental illness; you cannot have substituted decision making.
I found this discussion to be a useful summary: https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/disability-rights-mental-health-treatment-and-the-united-nations-ronr2019/
The author of the submitted article is from the UK, so I guess the UN report on mental health treatment in the UK is useful: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRPD/CRPD.C.15.R.2.Rev.1-ENG.doc
UDHR: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
ECHR: https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf
CRPD: https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html
It is possible to have the worst of both worlds, as the U.S. experience with 50 years of deinstitutionalization and de-funding of community-based mental health indicates.
I'm sad to hear that the U.K. appears to be proceeding down the same path of abandoning the mentally ill and disabled to carceral treatment.