13 disability and human rights organisations reiterate their strong opposition to the adoption of the draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention. This protocol would regulate involuntary placement and treatment in mental health settings, perpetuating coercive psychiatric practices on the basis of disability.
At a time when the Council of Europe has taken a positive step by adopting the Recommendation on respect for autonomy in mental healthcare, it is even clearer that the draft Additional Protocol points in the wrong direction.
The Recommendation confirms that autonomy, informed consent, and respect for individual will and preferences must be at the centre of mental healthcare. It strengthens, rather than weakens, the case for withdrawing the draft Additional Protocol. Endorsement of the Recommendation by the Forum and other disability organisations and partners cannot be read as legitimising the draft Protocol. It is, on the contrary, a clear call to abandon the draft Protocol and focus political and institutional efforts on implementing the Recommendation in a way that is consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Therefore, the European Disability Forum and partners call on the Council of Europe and its Member States to align their work with the human rights standards already reflected in the Recommendation and to definitively abandon the draft Additional Protocol.
We welcome the support for our call by other human rights bodies, including the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI), which adopted a statement in May 2026 raising serious concerns about the draft Additional Protocol. We also welcome the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ latest call for the withdrawal of the draft Additional Protocol, published on 1 July 2026.
The Council of Europe should now do what its own Recommendation suggests: ensure respect for autonomy in mental healthcare with the ultimate goal of eliminating the use of coercion. The draft Additional Protocol would increase the use of coercive measures, fails to respect and foster individual autonomy, and should therefore be definitively withdrawn.
Endorsements
- European Disability Forum
- Mental Health Europe
- European Network of (Ex)-Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
- European Network on Independent Living
- Autism-Europe
- Inclusion Europe
- Disabled Peoples’ International – Europe
- European Down Syndrome Association
- Comité Español de Representantes de Personas con Discapacidad
- European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities
- Society of Social Psychiatry P. Sakellaropoulos
- Validity
- Disability Rights International