Introduction

Abstract

Chapter 1 introduces the key question asked by the book: whether mental health law should be abolished or reformed and defines all the key terms (e.g. mental health law, mental impairment, involuntary detention and treatment, voluntary treatment, abolition and reform, etc). It puts mental health law into its wider social context pointing out that while at least 20 per cent of the community in any given year and 50 per cent in their lifetime have a mental health problem, mental health law only applies to a relatively small number of persons with severe mental health problems who are medically assessed to be at risk of harming themselves or others. It sets out the background to the fierce controversy about the future of mental health law during the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) negotiations and since its entry into force in 2008. It explains the conceptual framework for the book being human rights treaty interpretation and the jurisprudential or ethical analysis consistent with Ronald Dworkin of three core CRPD and human rights concepts—dignity (including autonomy), equality, and participation—to create the ‘interpretive compass.’ It discusses the social model of disability, the medical model, the human rights model, and the interactive model. It defines the scope of the book in that it excludes consideration of mental health specific criminal law doctrines like fitness to plead and the insanity defence and clarifies that the focus is on mental health law rather than other forms of substitute decision-making like guardianship. It explains the structure of the book.