What the Convention protects
Articles 12, 14, 15, 17 and 25 address legal capacity, liberty, bodily integrity, freedom from ill-treatment and health without discrimination.
Mental Health, Consent & Human Rights
Who decides what happens to your mind and body?
Autonomy · dignity · equal recognition
The right to decide.
International disability-rights standards place autonomy, supported decision-making and free and informed consent at the centre of mental-health care — including during crisis. This board brings together the source documents, testimony, legal questions and reforms needed to compare those standards with law and practice.
The evidence, side by side
Read original sources and distinguish testimony from verified documents.
International standard
Equal legal capacity, supported decision-making, liberty, bodily integrity and free and informed consent.
What the UN Committee says
General Comment No. 1 calls for supported decision-making and says laws permitting forced treatment should be abolished.
What the Committee requires
States should remove disability-based detention and compulsory treatment provisions and replace substitute decision-making with supported decision-making.
What WHO–OHCHR recommends
The 2023 guidance asks countries to eliminate coercion and build person-centred, rights-based community support.
National law and practice
Compare legislation, compulsory powers, safeguards and what people actually experience with the international standard.
Country spotlight: The New Zealand case
New Zealand’s compulsory mental-health law conflicts with obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which New Zealand ratified.
In 2022, the Committee specifically told New Zealand that replacement legislation should contain no provisions allowing disability-based deprivation of liberty or compulsory treatment. They have failed. What happens when a country fails to meet its obligations?
Accountability and remedy
Identify the conflict, publish the evidence, pursue domestic reform and remedies, and return to international review where necessary.
Reports & source documents
Open or download the original publications.
UNITED
NATIONS
CRPD
+
OHCHR
QUALITY
RIGHTS
NATIONS
NEW ZEALAND
NATIONS
CRPD
General Comment No. 1: Equal recognition before the law
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities · 2014
Open document ↗ WHO+
OHCHR
Mental health, human rights and legislation
Guidance and practice · 2023
Download PDF ↗ WHOQUALITY
RIGHTS
Mental health crisis services
Person-centred and rights-based approaches · 2021
Open publication ↗ UNITEDNATIONS
NEW ZEALAND
Concluding observations on New Zealand
CRPD Committee · 2022
Open document ↗People’s testimony
Illustrative anonymous accounts showing the kind of testimony this public board is designed to receive. They are not presented as verified statements from named individuals.
Anonymous · Aotearoa New ZealandIllustrative testimony · forced detention
“I was forcibly detained and medicated. It was terrifying and traumatic. I was treated as though my voice, my fear and what was happening to my body no longer mattered.”
Anonymous · United KingdomIllustrative testimony · forced medication
“The medication makes me feel terrible and afraid, but refusing it is treated as another symptom. It feels like a terrible assault on my mind, body and life.”
Anonymous · internationalIllustrative testimony · human-rights question
“Why can my country do this to me when the UN Committee says laws permitting forced treatment must be abolished? Why are governments allowed to sign the Convention and then ignore it?”
Open discussion
Ask difficult questions, challenge state power and add the evidence.
Why are countries ignoring the UN Committee’s call to abolish forced treatment?
When does psychiatric detention become state violence?
Can supported decision-making replace compulsory treatment?
What apology, remedy or compensation should survivors receive?
Why sign the Convention while retaining laws that contradict it?
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