Question of a draft Body of Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care.

1991/46. Question of a draft body of Principles for the Protection of Persons with mental illness and for the improvement of mental health care

The Commission on Human Rights, Mindful of the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and of other relevant instruments, such as the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons (General Assembly resolution 3447 (XXX)) and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (General Assembly resolution 43/173 , annex), Recalling its resolution 10 A (XXXIII) of 11 March 1977, by which it requested the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to study the question of the protection of persons detained on the grounds of mental ill-health, with a view to formulating guidelines, Recalling also its resolution 1989/40 of 6 March 1989 and Economic and Social Council resolution 1989/76 of 24 May 1989, by which the Council authorized an open-ended working group of the Commission to examine, revise and simplify as necessary the draft body of principles and guarantees submitted by the Sub-Commission, Recalling further of its resolution 1990/38 of 6 March 1990 and Economic and Social Council resolution 1990/37 of 25 May 1990, by which the Council authorized the open-ended working group to continue its work with a view to submitting the draft principles and guarantees to the Commission at its forty-seventh session, Having examined the final report of the open-ended working group (E/CN.4/1991/39), including annex I thereto, which contains the draft, as adopted by the working group, of a body of principles for the protection of persons with mental illness and for the improvement of mental health care, and annex II, which encloses a draft, as adopted by the working group, of a possible introduction to the body of principles, Noting the recommendation of the working group, in paragraph 23 of its report, that, if the body of principles were in due course adopted by the General Assembly, consideration should be given to publishing the introduction separately for the benefit of Governments and the public at large, Considering that it would also be desirable that the principles themselves should, when adopted by the General Assembly, be given the widest possible dissemination,

1. Expresses its appreciation for the work achieved by the open-ended working group in the elaboration of a draft body of principles for the protection of persons with mental illness and for the improvement of mental health care;

2. Endorses the draft body of principles as submitted by the open-ended working group;

3. Decides to transmit to the General Assembly, through the Economic and Social Council, the draft body of principles as submitted by the open-ended working group as well as the report of the working group;

4. Recommends that, on the adoption by the General Assembly of the draft body of principles, the full text thereof should be given the widest possible dissemination and that the introduction should at the same time be published as an accompanying document for the benefit of Governments and the public at large;

5. Recommends the following draft resolution to the Economic and Social Council for adoption:

[For the text, see chap. I, sect. A, draft resolution IV.]

52nd meeting
5 March 1991
[Adopted without a vote. See chap. XIV.]