The United Nations Committee for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has issued a new Open Letter reaffirming its opposition to involuntary detention and treatment in mental health care, stating that any form of coercion is incompatible with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) welcomed the initiative and is calling for similar protections to be adopted in U.S. law.
Jan Eastgate, CCHR's International President, noted that while the CRPD was adopted in 2007 and drew heavily on U.S. disability-rights principles, the United States has never ratified the treaty, citing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a predecessor. Eastgate stressed that the ADA should be reformed to explicitly protect against forced psychiatric institutionalization and treatment, as guaranteed under international human rights law.
The CRPD Committee's Open Letter makes several key points. It states that involuntary placement and treatment are prohibited without exceptions, even as measures of last resort or with safeguards. Such practices perpetuate institutional power imbalances that have been documented to expose persons with disabilities to torture and ill-treatment. Evidence-based reports have concluded that there are no therapeutic benefits and a lack of clinical evidence supporting coercion and involuntary institutionalization, which can cause harm and death. The Committee emphasizes that involuntary placement, treatment, seclusion, and restraint are discriminatory measures that deny legal capacity and may amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
The European Times further reported that the CRPD prohibits involuntary placement and treatment on the basis of disability, without exceptions, and that coercion in mental health services is incompatible with the human rights model of disability.
CCHR emphasizes that these human rights perspectives are urgently needed in the U.S., where 1.2 million Americans are involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities each year. The consequences of coercion can be lethal: a July 2025 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that individuals who were involuntarily hospitalized were nearly twice as likely to die by suicide or overdose within three months of release. An estimated 100,000 Americans receive electroshock treatment annually, and state laws in many jurisdictions still permit it to be administered involuntarily, despite well-documented risks of memory loss and brain damage.
A new evaluation of court-mandated mental health treatment in New York under its involuntary commitment law known as "Kendra's Law" compared outcomes of people forced into outpatient treatment with those who received similar services voluntarily. Forced treatment—often called "assisted outpatient treatment"—was found to be more harmful when mandated.
Between 2016 and 2022, there was a 141% increase in the use of pharmacologic restraint among hospitalized children ages 5–17 with a mental health diagnosis, according to a study published in Pediatrics. Often-used physical restraints can cause serious injury or death. Recent cases involving the restraint deaths of a 7-year-old and a 16-year-old each resulted in homicide rulings by medical examiners and the prosecution of six staff members.
The 2023 joint WHO-Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) guidance also called for legislative reform to end coercion in mental health services, replace psychiatric institutions with inclusive community support systems, and enshrine free and informed consent in the mental health field.
Eastgate concluded: "The United States can no longer claim leadership on disability rights while continuing to allow forced psychiatric detention and treatment. It is unmistakably clear that coercion has no place in the mental health field. U.S. law should be brought into full alignment with international human rights standards. Anything less abandons the very principles of liberty and equality that America champions."
CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, has achieved hundreds of laws that empower patients with informed consent and the right to legal representation against loss of liberty and forced treatment in psychiatric institutions.
