The convention on human rights and biomedicine and the use of coercion in psychiatry

Abstract

According to a recent convention on human rights and biomedicine, coercive treatment of psychiatric patients may only be given if, without such treatment, serious harm is likely to result to the health of the patient, it must not be given in the interest of other people. In the present article a discussion is undertaken about the implication of this stipulation for the use of coercion in psychiatry in general and in forensic psychiatry in particular.