Involuntary Psychiatric Admission: Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty or a Human Right?

Abstract

In 2008 Brazil ratified The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) an international legal instrument specifically tailored to stipulate the rights of persons with disabilities and include those with serious mental disorders. United Nations Committee set up to monitor the implementation of the Convention (CRPD Committee) lead to an insistence that involuntary detention and treatment of people with mental health (or “psychosocial”) disabilities are prohibited. There is a debate about this topic that poses an impossibility of involuntary psychiatric admission in hospital.