ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen increasing reform of mental health law and debate, especially in relation to involuntary detention and treatment, largely stimulated by the passing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. This chapter will examine these changes, surrounding challenges, and some related initiatives including moving towards capacity-based law, mental health advance decision-making, and co-production within mental health law. I will argue that, in order for mental health law to progress towards helping to realise the aspirations of the CRPD, we must direct increased attention towards associated clinical, social, and environmental considerations. In the second half of this chapter, I then examine two areas typically falling beyond the remit of discussions of mental health law and stress their importance in relation to the human rights of those with mental illness – the criminalisation of suicide, and legalising euthanasia for mental disorder or ‘psychological suffering’.
