Mental Health and Human Rights The Challenges of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to Mental Health Care

“Any reader interested in mental health (especially in the area of disability and rehabilitation) will be able to enhance one’s awareness, knowledge, and understanding. This book will also serve as a useful resource for teaching and training. We recommend it to all mental health professionals, service users, caregivers, and policymakers alike.” (Debasish Basu and Nitin Gupta, World Social Psychiatry, Vol. 6 (3), September-December, 2024)

“The book is inspired by real-life stories of people with lived experiences of mental illness. … The book is very well laid out and avoids long-winded tracts of text. It keeps the core aim to the fore throughout in elucidating the challenges of implementing the CRPD. …The book is excellent for those interested in human rights and mental healthcare as it uses real-life scenarios common in clinical practice.” (Martin Curtice, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 226 (3), March, 2025)

Professor Neeraj Gill, MBBS, MD (Psychiatry), FRANZCP, DrPH is a Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia and Professor, Public Mental Health at the Mental Health Policy Unit, Health Research Institute, The University of Canberra, ACT, Australia. He is a psychiatrist at the Gold Coast Health, Australia. He is the Secretary of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Section on Psychiatry, Law and Ethics and the Regional Vice-President, Oceania, for the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH). He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 2020, based on his doctoral thesis on 'human rights of people with mental disabilities'. He has published many academic papers on human rights, mental health law and Indigenous Australian social and emotional wellbeing.

Professor Norman Sartorius, MD, PhD, FRCPsych holdsprofessorial appointments at several universities in Europe, and the USA. He was the Director of the Mental Health Programme of the WHO, President of the World Psychiatric Association and of the European Psychiatric Association. He is currently President of the Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programmes in Geneva. Currently his main interests are problems related to comorbidity of mental and physical disorders, the fight against stigma and the education of stakeholders (and in particular psychiatrists early in their career) in mental health care. He has published more than 500 articles in scientific journals and written, co-authored or edited more than 100 books.