This is a book about human rights, law and mental disorder. More specifically, this book explores the human rights consequences of recent and ongoing revisions of mental health legislation in England and Ireland explicitly in the context of the World Health Organization (WHO) human rights standards,1 recent case-law from the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).2 This book’s main themes are dignity, human rights and mental health law. The book’s key objectives are to: • determine to what extent, if any, human rights concerns have influenced recent and ongoing revisions of mental health legislation in England and Ireland; and • determine to what extent, if any, recent developments in mental health law in both jurisdictions have assisted in protecting and promoting the human rights of the mentally ill. Chapter 1 commences by introducing key concepts such as mental disorder, human rights, human dignity and paternalism, with particular emphasis on the economic, social, and personal consequences of mental disorder. There is strong emphasis on human rights as applied in the specific context of mental disorder, with reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,3 European Convention on Human Rights (Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) (ECHR)4 and the UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care