Mental Health and Mental Disability Law

The past year has been a lively one for those interested in mental health and mental capacity law.  The Law Commission’s review of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards is to be published in December.  In Northern Ireland, the move towards a unified mental health and mental capacity act continues to inch forward.  We continue to see the results of how the Scots legislation and the Mental Health Act 2007 south of the border, are working in practice.  At the international level, it is increasingly clear that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is changing what is expected of mental health and mental capacity law.  

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While these legal developments provide a particularly apt occasion for the stream, papers from all areas of the law relating to mental health, mental capacity and mental disability are welcome, including:

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• Civil, criminal or informal mechanisms of control, in hospital or in the community

• Supported decision-making and supported accommodation

• The law relating to incapacity benefits, and other issues relating to care and programmes in the community;

• Issues relating to discrimination on the basis of mental disability (be it mental health issues, psychosocial disabilities, or learning disabilities)

• International law relating to people with mental disabilities;  

• The role of administration or care-givers in the provision of services;

• The role or experience of service users in mental health care.

 

There is no restriction on methodology:  papers may be empirical, policy-centred, historical, analytic, traditional legal, or theoretical, in approach. 

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The SLSA is an interdisciplinary organization, and papers are welcome from any academic background, and from people at any stage of their career. People with lived experience of mental distress are welcome.

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The stream co-ordinators are happy to consider joint sessions with other streams in the conference where appropriate.

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Conveners

Peter Bartlett (peter.bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk) and Amanda Keeling (a.keeling@leeds.ac.uk)