Next week the United Nations Human Rights Committee is scheduled to begin evaluating Ireland’s progress towards implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Eilionoir Flynn of the National University of Ireland discusses some of the critiques of Ireland’s current mental health laws and practices ahead of that evaluation. Flynn writes that “various provisions of Ireland’s Mental Health Act, in addition to certain practices within mental health settings, conflict with the rights contained in the ICCPR. One such example is section 59 – which allows electro-convulsive therapy to be administered to patients who are ‘unable or unwilling to provide consent’ on the approval of two consultant psychiatrists.”
Civil and political rights in mental health – Ireland’s dialogue with the Human Rights Committee (Human Rights in Ireland, July 9, 2014)
