MHE and EDF publish #WithdrawOviedo advocacy toolkit

Mental Health Europe (MHE), in collaboration with the European Disability Forum (EDF) released an advocacy toolkit against the draft additional protocol to the Oviedo Convention. 

The toolkit aims to inform various stakeholders about an initiative of the Council of Europe which regulates the involuntary placement and treatment of persons with mental health problems in psychiatric institutions. It offers tools to advocate against such initiative that, if adopted, would allow for human rights violations all over Europe.

Join our campaign  opposing the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention and urge the Council of Europe to withdraw it.

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