With contributions from an international team of experts, this collection provides a much-needed international, comparative approach to mental capacity law. The book focuses particularly on exploring substantive commonalities and divergences in normative orientation and practical application embedded in different legal frameworks. It draws together contributions from eleven different jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and the UK and explores what productive or unproductive values and practices currently exist. By providing a detailed comparison of how legal and ethical commitments to persons with disabilities are framed in capacity law across different national systems, the book highlights the values and practices that could lead to changes that better respect persons with disabilities in mental capacity regimes.

With contributions from an international team of experts, this collection provides a much-needed international, comparative approach to mental capacity law. It focuses particularly on exploring substantive commonalities and divergences in normative orientation and practical application embedded in different legal frameworks. It draws together contributions from eleven different jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and the UK and explores what productive or unproductive values and practices currently exist.

Legal personhood is required for voting, marrying, inheriting, contracting, consenting, and other critical social acts that can be predicates to power and privilege. The Right to Legal Personhood of Marginalised Groups addresses personhood and legal capacity as human rights issues, in particular as they relate to disabled people, migrant groups, indigenous peoples, racial minorities, women, and gender minorities. The concepts of personhood, legal capacity, and agency have conflicting definitions in the literature, and there is a lack of clarity regarding their application. Dr. Anna Arstein-Kerslake brings her expertise as a renowned thinker in the areas of human rights, disability rights, gender justice, and legal personhood to this discussion. She provides clarity on personhood and legal capacity by developing definitions of these concepts based on the articulation of the right to legal capacity in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She then applies these definitions to the situations of various minority groups. The Right to Legal Personhood of Marginalised Groups has the potential to significantly enrich the understanding of how and why marginalised groups are denied equality. It goes beyond the traditional analysis of discrimination and equal protection of the law and explores a new social justice imperative: equal recognition before the law.

This book provides mental capacity practitioners with accessible ethical guidance and applicable tools for applying the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005. It shows how clients' relationships can impact their capacity in positive and negative ways, and which communication skills practitioners can use to enable and empower those with impairment. It also covers how to engage in self-reflection and transparent debate about values to improve the quality of assessments. Helping practitioners interpret complex issues of mental capacity in the most beneficial way for clients, this book is essential reading for students and practitioners of law, medicine, mental health services and social care.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence Effective participation in court and tribunal hearings is regarded as essential to justice, yet many barriers limit the capacity of defendants, parties and witnesses to participate. Featuring policy analysis, courtroom observations and practitioners’ voices, this significant study reveals how participation is supported in the courts and tribunals of England and Wales. Including reflections on changes to the justice system as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also details the socio-structural, environmental, procedural, cultural and personal factors which constrain participation. This is an invaluable resource that makes a compelling case for a principled, explicit commitment to supporting participation across the justice system of England and Wales and beyond.

An essential overview of the comparative study of human rights law. This book will introduce students, academics, and legal practitioners to the aims and methods of approaching human rights from a comparative perspective.

The Law Society and British Medical Association have produced a new edition of their practical guidelines on the assessment of mental capacity for all professionals working with people who lack, or who may lack, capacity to make decisions.