Call for Papers – Mental Health and Mental Capacity Law Stream Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, 9 – 11 April 2014

This years Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference is to be held at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

Initial Deadline for submissions: 27 January 2014

The past year has been a lively one for those interested in mental health and mental capacity law. The Supreme Court has made its first decision interpreting the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (and presumably its decision on the meaning of ‘deprivation of liberty’ will be handed down before the Conference). The Court of Protection continues to cut new ground, most notably in areas relating to best interests. We continue to see the results of how the Scots legislation and the Mental Health Act 2007 south of the border, are working in practice (CTOs, anyone?). At the international level, it is increasingly clear that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is changing what is expected of mental health and mental capacity law.
While these legal developments provide a particularly apt occasion for the stream, papers from all areas of the law relating to mental health, mental capacity and mental disability are welcome, including:
• Civil, criminal or informal mechanisms of control, in hospital or in the community
• The law relating to incapacity benefits, and other issues relating to care and programmes in the community;
• Issues relating to discrimination on the basis of mental disability (be it mental health issues, psychosocial disabilities, or learning disabilities)
• International law relating to people with mental disabilities;
• The role of administration or care-givers in the provision of services;
• The role or experience of service users in mental health care.
We impose no restriction on methodology: papers may be empirical, policy-centred, historical, analytic, traditional legal, or theoretical, in approach.
The SLSA is an interdisciplinary organization, and papers are welcome from any academic background, and from people at any stage of their career.
The stream co-ordinator is also happy to consider joint sessions with other streams in the conference where appropriate.
Please feel free to circulate this call for papers to interested scholars and other interested persons working in any discipline related to law and mental disability.

The stream co-ordinator is Peter Bartlett (peter.bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk). Please feel free to contact him with enquiries about the stream. Proposals for papers should be submitted online through the conference website.

About the conference

The Socio-Legal Studies Conference occurs annually, in 2014 at the Department of Law at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. It is among the major socio-legal studies conferences internationally, attracting a wide variety of scholars, and subject streams within the conference span the range of topics in socio-legal studies.

All attendees (including presenters) must register for the conference and pay the required attendance fee. Reduced rates are available prior to 7 February 2014, and also for students and SLSA members. Scholarships are also available for students. For more information, see the conference web site.

SLSA Conference 2012

The next annual SLSA conference is being held in sunny Leicester from the 3-5th April. We are lucky to be going back to De Montfort University again who did an excellent job of hosting the conference in 2009. More information here.

Earlybird rates for delegates close on Jan 31st so if you are interested it would pay to sign up soon.

Peter and Nell will be coordinating the mental health and mental capacity law stream and are lucky to have an excellent range of papers already submitted. If you are keen on participating please submit an abstract asap, and at least within the next week as we need to allow the organisers some time to schedule sessions and print the abstract book. The call for papers is below:

The past year has been a lively one for those interested in mental health and mental capacity law. The new tribunal system is bedding into the English and Welsh law, and the government is proposing major changes to incapacity benefits. Litigation is starting to appear about just how far the government can cut services, and a variety of decisions has called the effect of the DOLS into question in England and Wales. We continue to see the results of how the new Scots legislation, and the Mental Health Act 2007 south of the border, are working in practice (CTOs, anyone?). At the international level, the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has has entered into effect; now we need to figure out what it means, and how it should be implemented. While these legal developments provide a particularly apt occasion for the stream, papers from all areas of the law relating to mental health and mental disability are welcome, including:

• Civil, criminal or informal mechanisms of control;

• The law relating to incapacity benefits, and other issues relating to care and programmes in the community;

• International law relating to people with mental disabilities;

• The role of administration or care-givers in the provision of services;

• The role or experience of service users in mental health care.

We impose no restriction on methodology: papers may be empirical, policy-centred, historical, analytic, traditional legal, or theoretical, in approach. The stream co-ordinators are also happy to consider joint sessions with other streams in the conference where appropriate.