In an open letter published on Thursday 9 January, a coalition of civil society and human rights organisations urged the Council of Europe to withdraw the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, designed to “protect the rights of people with mental disorders”.
As an assessment of the draft recommendation approaches, which will be crucial to continuing work on the Protocol initiated in 2014 but suspended until 2024 due to strong opposition, the authors of the letter, who have been opposed to the text for over ten years, denounce the risk of “entrenching coercion and institutionalisation”, thereby aggravating violations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the Council of Europe member states.
Pointing out that the Council of Europe’s draft recommendation on respect for autonomy in mental health care is sufficient, and taking advantage of a growing consensus among professionals and scientists against coercion, the organisations are calling for a paradigm shift, through best practice and greater legal clarity.
See the open letter: https://aeur.eu/f/ez4 (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)