Welcome to the 22nd WCP Congress Program Scheduling

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD) is the first international treaty which brings the rights of persons with disabilities into the ambit of international law. It specifically mentions people with mental disabilities in its Article 1. There has been a great deal of controversy regarding the implications of the CRPD on mental health care. Some have interpreted the CRPD as calling for a total ban on involuntary treatment under all circumstances, while others have called for a more realistic balance of rights recognized in the Convention. Still others have claimed that the convention would leave many people with mental health conditions worse off by interfering with efforts to protect them and called it a ‘problem child of international human rights law’. This session will use presentations of case histories raising questions about the application of the CRPD in clinical practice to provide insights useful in the formulation of suggestions about issues which would be addressed by the WPA in its collaboration with the World Health Organization and other UN agencies