Mental Health as a Human Rights Issue
Under international human rights law, everyone has a right to the highest attainable standard of mental health and mental health services. Article 12 of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides this right. Ireland ratified that Covenant in 1989, so is legally bound to uphold it.
Article 12 requires government to provide “a sufficient number of hospitals, clinics and other health-related facilities, and the promotion and support of the establishment of institutions providing counseling and mental health services, with due regard to equitable distribution throughout the country”. The entitlements under Article 12 “include the right to a system of health protection which provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health”.
Other international human rights standards have been adopted by the international community, such as the 1991 UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care (called the MI Principles), to explain the basic rights and freedoms of people with mental health problems. MI Principle 1(2) lays down the basic foundation upon which states’ obligations are built: that “all persons with a mental illness, or who are being treated as such persons, shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”.
These international obligations exist in addition to those in Ireland’s domestic law and Constitution and where there is a conflict, at the international level, international law is superior.
Human rights are not just about torture and imprisonment - they also include economic, social and cultural rights. The right to the highest attainable standard of mental health is one such right, as is the right to suitable housing, education, and other rights relevant to people with mental health problems. Often people think that human rights concerns are just about other people in other countries. Some forget - or others never know - that international human rights apply equally to everyone in Ireland. Human rights are a useful tool for lobbying government, since governments’ failure to provide appropriate mental health services for all is not just morally questionable but amounts to non-compliance with their international human rights obligations.