UN Special Rapporteur calls for an end to involuntary treatment and detention justified by mental illness... or does he?

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Juan E. Méndez, issued a report and a statement* to the UN Human Rights Council on 4th March this year, in which he discusses medical interventions which override a person’s choices on disability related grounds – including involuntary treatment and detention.  He places them in the context of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and discusses their relationships with inhuman and degrading treatment and – in some cases – torture.

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as the ‘new normative paradigm’ for interpreting norms around torture, inhuman and degrading treatment
The Special Rapporteur’s report and statement are firmly grounded in the normative ordering of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Contrary to some recent suggestions that treaties like the UN CRPD simply ‘replicate’ the rights contained in other treaties for people with disabilities, the UN CRPD contains some radical departures from other human rights norms, especially in the area of involuntary treatment and confinement of persons with mental disabilities. The Special Rapporteur stated that ‘the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities offers the most comprehensive set of standards on the rights of persons with disabilities, inter alia, in the context of health care’ [61]. As we shall shortly see, he is critical of other human rights standards which permit involuntary treatment and confinement of persons with disabilities.