Global Mental Health: Changing Norms, Constant Rights (original) (raw)

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This paper critically examines the prevalent myths surrounding mental disability, including misconceptions of incompetency and dangerousness, as well as the effectiveness of deinstitutionalization. The authors argue that the stigma and social barriers faced by individuals with mental disabilities result from these myths and that human rights-compliant mental health policies can alleviate these issues. Recommendations include improving community mental health services, promoting integration, and ensuring adequate funding, to foster a supportive environment aligned with human rights standards.

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Mental Disabilities and the Human Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health

Human Rights Quarterly, 2006

See, e.g., eUropean coMMittee for tHe prevention of tortUre and inHUMan or degrading treatMent (cpt), tHe cpt standards: "sUBstantive" sections of tHe cpt's general reports 55 (2004), Doc. No. CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1-Rev. 2004. 10. See Mental disaBility rigHts international (Mdri) & asociaciĆ³n pro derecHos HUManos, HUMan rigHts and Mental HealtH in perU 12-14 (2004); Mental disaBility advocacy centre, cage Beds: inHUMan and degrading treatMent in foUr eU accession coUntries (2003); aMnesty international, roMania: MeMorandUM to tHe governMent concerning inpatient psycHiatric treatMent (2004).

Adverse consequences of article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for persons with mental disabilities and an alternative way forward

Journal of Medical Ethics, 2018

It is widely accepted among medical ethicists that competence is a necessary condition for informed consent. In this view, if a patient is incompetent to make a particular treatment decision, the decision must be based on an advance directive or made by a substitute decision-maker on behalf of the patient. We call this the competence model. According to a recent report of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) presents a wholesale rejection of the competence model. The High Commissioner here adopts the interpretation of article 12 proposed by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. On this interpretation, CRPD article 12 renders it impermissible to deny persons with mental disabilities the right to make treatment decisions on the basis of impaired decision-making capacity and demands the replacement of all regimes of substitute decision-making by supported decision-making. In this paper, we explicate six adverse consequences of CRPD article 12 for persons with mental disabilities and propose an alternative way forward. The proposed model combines the strengths of the competence model and supported decision-making.

Mental Illness" and Justice as Recognition

Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly

Disability scholars have argued that the disadvantage of disability is caused primarily by social factors and calls out for social change as a matter of justice. But what about psychiatric disability? While noting several factors that make psychiatric disability a special casethe mentally ill individuals unreliability of judgment and instability of functioningSara Goering argues that much is gained by viewing mental illness through the lens of social oppression and workingtoward recognition of individuals with mental illness as equal members of the human community

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