ABSTRACT
During the 1970s and 1980s, western countries around the world entered a process of deinstitutionalization, releasing many people with cognitive impairments and mental illness from staterun institutions and asylums. This chapter examines the operationalization of human rights safeguards and protections within the context of recent mental health and disability law reform. It explores how human rights conventions are used in relation to the contentious practices of involuntarily detaining or compulsorily treating people with cognitive impairments or mental illness under disability and mental health acts. Human rights scholarship concerning the practices of involuntary detention and compulsory treatment primarily revolves around questions of compliance. The chapter provides a brief overview of human rights scholarship in the context of involuntary detention and compulsory treatment. It offers a framework for understanding the operation and focus of contemporary mental health and disability law.
