scholarly journals Mental health legislation in Botswana

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 68-70
Author(s):  
J. Maphisa Maphisa
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Legislation

The Mental Disorders Act of 1969 is the primary legislation relating to mental health in Botswana. Despite the country not being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, its Act has a self-rated score of four out of five on compliance to human rights covenants. However, it can be argued that the Act does not adequately espouse a human rights- and patient-centred approach to legislation. It is hoped that ongoing efforts to revise the Act will address the limitations discussed in this article.

scholarly journals Influence of the new mental health legislation in India

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-22
Author(s):  
Rakesh K. Chadda
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Legislation

This paper discusses the influence of the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 on mental healthcare in India. The new Act was introduced to meet the recommendations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Reforms proposed in the new legislation, challenges in their implementation and their effects on mental healthcare in the country are further discussed.

scholarly journals The need to reform mental health legislation in Commonwealth countries

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumitra Pathare ◽  
Laura Shields ◽  
Jaya Sagade ◽  
Renuka Nardodkar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Legislation

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) serves as a comprehensive and legally binding framework for the rights of persons with mental illness. The extent to which countries have adapted their mental health legislation to reflect the binding provisions outlined in the CRPD is unclear. This paper reviews the situation across the Commonwealth.

scholarly journals Human rights-based approaches to mental health legislation and global mental health

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 37-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Eaton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Mental Health ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Medical Authority ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Alternative Practices ◽  
Health Legislation

Globally, established practice in mental health services has tended to be codified into law in ways that are paternalistic, seeking to make decisions for patients that presume ‘best interest’ and which ultimately place power in the hands of medical authority. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) – which has been widely ratified globally – challenges these assumptions, instead placing the expressed will and preference of patients as the most important factor in decision-making, including treatment and consent to admission. The contradictions between these approaches cause profound challenges in legislation reform, but a human rights framework offers the potential for a paradigm shift in the way that people are treated in services, and in exploration of alternative practices that promise a more humane and dignified future for mental health care.

scholarly journals THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE PROMOTION OF ELITE DISABILITY SPORT: A WORLDWIDE ANALYSIS

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
Jaime Prieto ◽  
Juan L. Paramio-Salcines
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Disability Sport ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
Athletes With Disabilities ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations

Little attention has been focused on the analysis of the interrelation between disability and elite disability sport from the human rights perspective as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) demands of those countries that ratified this global regulation. More than a decade since its promulgation in December 2006, the United Nations itself and a plethora of authors recognises that disability in general and disability sport by extension has not yet been seen as a human rights issue in many countries, principally in developing countries. This paper is divided into four main parts. First, academic literature in relation to disability, human rights policy and sport at elite level is explored. Second, it examines the active role of the International Paralympic Committee, regarded as a major advocate for the rights of the sport promotion of athletes with disabilities, to implement the Convention by the organisation of sports events for Paralympic athletes worldwide at all levels of the sport development continuum. Third, it explains the methods and data collection followed in the study and the following section presents results of the analysis. Finally, it draws an international scenario that might be valuable in informing academics, institutions and professionals to promote elite disability sport from the human rights perspective.

Art.20 Personal Mobility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kovudhikulrungsri Lalin ◽  
Hendriks Aart
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Personal Mobility ◽  
Cultural Activities ◽  
European Court ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

This chapter examines Article 20 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Personal mobility is a prerequisite for inclusion in a society. According to the European Court of Human Rights, to be mobile and to have access to transport, housing, cultural activities, and leisure is a precondition for the ‘right to establish and develop relations with other human beings’, ‘in professional or business contexts as in others’. The CRPD does not establish new rights for persons with disabilities. It is merely thought to identify specific actions that states and others must take to ensure the effectiveness and inclusiveness of all human rights and to protect against discrimination on the basis of disability. However, the fact that there is no equivalent of the right to personal mobility in any other human rights treaty makes it particularly interesting to examine the genesis and meaning of this provision.

Art.4 General Obligations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Broderick Andrea
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations

This chapter examines Article 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The article sets out the general obligations under the CRPD with a view to encouraging national legal and policy reform and guiding domestic implementation of the Convention. The content of Article 4 is of cross-cutting application, since it contains overarching principles that permeate the text of the Convention as a whole. The obligations contained in the article thus seek to contextualize the interpretation of the substantive provisions of the Convention. Article 4 enumerates both general obligations and specific obligations. This distinguishes it from similar provisions in other human rights treaties, which are more in the nature of general obligations of compliance.

scholarly journals Canada Should Retain Its Reservation on the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 809-812
Author(s):  
Mathieu Dufour ◽  
Thomas Hastings ◽  
Richard O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Not Criminally Responsible ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006. When Canada ratified the CRPD, it reserved the right to continue using substitute decision making schemes even if the CRPD was ‘interpreted as requiring their elimination’. This was a prescient decision because the CRPD Committee, which is tasked with overseeing the interpretation and implementation of the CRPD, subsequently opined that all legislation supporting substitute decision making schemes contravene the CRPD and must be revoked. The CRPD Committee insists that every person can make decisions with sufficient support and that if a person lacks capacity to make a decision, we must rely on their ‘will and preferences’. Many international legal scholars have called this interpretation unrealistic. We agree and, in this article, describe how this unrealistic approach would result in extensive harm and suffering for people with severe cognitive or psychotic disorders. The reader should also be aware that the CRPD Committee also calls for the elimination of all mental health acts and the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights for the abandonment of the not criminally responsible (NCR) defence.

A new United Nations ‘disability’ convention

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Szmukler
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Involuntary Treatment ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) presents in a tailored form the rights of such persons. Mental health disabilities are included. While the Convention is most welcome, it is hugely challenging when it comes to involuntary treatment. Important authorities have interpreted it as excluding all forms of ‘substitute decision-making’. The Convention demands ‘respect for the rights, will and preferences’ of persons with disabilities. This chapter examines the meaning of ‘will’ and of ‘preference’. A problem arises when a person’s currently expressed ‘preference’ (or desire or wish) diverges from the person’s ‘will’ (taken to mean a person’s relatively enduring and deeply held value commitments). Both cannot be respected at the same time. Which should have precedence? The method of ‘interpretation’ discussed in Chapter 7 allows such a determination to be made, and aligns the ‘fusion law’ proposal with the objectives of the Convention.

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