A Human Rights Emergency in Mental Health

Abstract

On the 10th October 2019, Ed Sheeran and Prince Harry made headlines for pledging their support to ‘World Mental Health Day’1 – an international day dedicated to mental health education, awareness and advocacy against stigma. Leaving aside one’s views on the monarchy and popular musicians, the message they were delivering is a serious and urgent one. Moreover, it is a message human rights lawyers and EU policy makers need to deliver too. There are, arguably, three core reasons for this. The first is high prevalence and cost. According to the World Health Organisation (who), mental health problems affect one in four citizens at least once during their lifetime and can affect more than 10% of the EU population (i.e. 50 million people) during any given year.2 According to Eurostat, suicide remains a significant cause of premature death in Europe, with over 50,000 deaths a year in the EU.3 Aside from human suffering, mental health problems cost €260 billion a year due to lower employment and productivity rates across the 28 EU member states.4 The second is low investment. Despite the human and economic costs, public spending via health budgets on mental health are negligible in comparison