Webinar | #WithdrawOviedo: Online launch of advocacy toolkit | 25 March 2021

Mental Health Europe (MHE) is delighted to invite you to a webinar, co-organised with the European Disability Forum (EDF), for the launch of an advocacy toolkit against the draft additional protocol to the Oviedo Convention. The event will take place online on 25 March 2021 at 3 pm CET.

The event will provide an overview of MHE’s & EDF’s joint work opposing the draft additional protocol to understand why it violates human rights. Additionally, the webinar will outline the process of adoption of the draft protocol and present the advocacy toolkit and with instructions on how to use it.

The webinar will bring together representatives from Mental Health Europe, the European Disability Forum, the European Network of (Ex) – Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as speakers.

In line with accessibility standards, the online event will include international sign interpretation and real-time captioning in English. In addition, the webinar will be recorded and shared afterwards for those interested but unable to join.

Download the agenda

Background

Under the Council of Europe, the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, better known as the Oviedo Convention, is the only international legally binding instrument for protecting human rights in the biomedical field. It establishes that human rights must come before other considerations in the field of biomedicine. It lays down a series of principles and prohibitions concerning bioethics, medical research, consent, rights to private life and information, organ transplantation, public debate, etc.

In 2014, the Committee of Bioethics of the Council of Europe started to work on a “draft additional protocol concerning the protection of human rights and dignity of persons with mental disorder with regard to involuntary placement and involuntary treatment”. Since the beginning of this work, Mental Health Europe and other civil society organisations and experts from the United Nations have advocated against its development.

Despite continuous opposition, a final draft was approved which the Committee of Bioethics will vote on in June 2021. Final adoption will take place at the end of 2021 or early 2022. Therefore, this webinar aims to raise further awareness and promote an advocacy toolkit to strengthen and unite opposition efforts against the additional protocol to the Oviedo Convention.

Learn more about MHE’s work opposing the draft additional protocol to the Oviedo Convention HERE