Involuntary placement and forced treatment in psychiatry: Autonomy and non-discrimination as a human rights standard

This article describes the current standards of human rights, applicable to involuntary placement and forced treatment practices that take place daily in the context of psychiatry. Protected by legality and a therapeutic discourse, there remain in Chile and in an important part of the world, invisible ways of deprivation of liberty and subjection of people to highly invasive interventions, affecting their physical and mental integrity in mental health centers, which in the absence of free and informed consent, constitute serious violations of the rights recognized by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The content of those standards and recent recommendations on their implementation will be offered, in light of the comments made by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the report about integration in Mental Health and Human Rights prepared by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.