Between legislation and bioethics: the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine

The chapter explores the role that regional legislation plays in framing human rights and ethical principles in psychiatry by considering the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. The chapter identifies the Convention’s contribution to an emergent legislative, regulatory and discursive formation, which is characterized by its alloy of human rights and bioethics. The author draws attention to articles within the Convention that have implications for psychiatry as regards its engagement with patients, with those on whom it depends to conduct research, and with the public. As well as indicating how various States within the Council of Europe have responded to the Convention, the author considers how the Convention attempts to align human rights and ethics through the regulation and formalisation of the relationship between doctor and patient, and researcher and research participant. This alignment is taking place at the same time as biomedicine is putting pressure on concepts (such as autonomy and informed consent) central to bioethics and human rights discourse