Mental Health Law and Policy: Rights, Regulation, and Reform

Dear Colleagues, 

This Special Issue on 'Mental Health Law and Policy: Rights, Regulation, and Reform’ aims to bring together a variety of perspectives and research on mental health law, with a particular focus on reforming mental health law and policy across jurisdictions.

Given that many jurisdictions are currently undergoing or have recently undergone a process of reform regarding laws and policies related to mental health and compulsory treatment, this Special Issue is both important and timely. India and Nigeria, for example, recently introduced new and progressive mental health laws that seek to advance the rights of persons with mental illness. In England and Wales, the long process of reforming the Mental Health Act 1983, which began in 2017 with the establishment of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, has finally resulted in the passage of legislation, with the Mental Health Act 2025 receiving Royal Assent on 18th December 2025. There were significant stumbling blocks throughout this protracted reform process and questions remain as to whether the reforms introduced by the Act will be able to address the problems that led to the Review. Notably, the Act is an amending statute and does not necessarily bring about radical changes to the statutory scheme. Nonetheless, it is hoped the new Act will lead to the implementation of important changes to strengthen patient rights and reduce the use of compulsion. Similarly, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland have also undertaken major reviews and/or reforms of mental health/capacity laws in recent years. These changes have, in part, been influenced by the emergence of new international human rights norms in the form of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and guidance from the World Health Organisation  published in 2025 on Mental health, Human rights, and Legislation. Internationally, the CRPD has challenged the use of compulsory powers to treat mental illness and ongoing debates about the impact and influence of the Convention persist across the globe.

However, such legal reforms cannot be removed from the wider context in which mental health care and treatment is delivered. Whilst the mental health of the population (both on a national and global level) appears to be worsening, mental health services are coming under increasing pressure and are often hugely under-resourced. There is also evidence that particular groups are disadvantaged in the system; for example, racialised and marginalised communities, children/young people and people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds. This raises the questions of whether significant change that leads to a meaningful realisation of patients’ rights can be achieved by reforming law and policy alone, when the system delivering care is under such strain and contributes to mental health inequalities.

This critical juncture for mental health law (both domestically and internationally) highlights the impetus for bringing together research and scholarship on this topic. This Special Issue invites papers exploring mental health law and policy within and across jurisdictions from a wide range of perspectives and methodologies, as it affects the population as a whole and/or particular groups.

Please contact the Guest Editors if you are interested in contributing to this Special Issue. Additionally, we would be grateful if you could please share this call for papers among your networks in the field.

Prof. Dr. Judy Laing
Dr. Martha Scanlon
Guest Editors

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