Mental illness and the Disability Convention

New Zealand has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This means New Zealand has a legal obligation to respect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Convention.

Like the Human Rights Act, the definition of disability under the Convention includes mental illness.

The process of ratifying the Convention resulted in some changes being made to New Zealand law, including the removal of provisions which prevented people from performing various public roles because of ‘mental disorder’. For example, before ratification of the Convention, the Education Act 1989 said that a person who was ‘mentally disordered’ could not become a member of a school board of trustees. That is no longer the case. The Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Act 2008 sets out all the changes that were made to New Zealand law in order for the Convention to be ratified.

New Zealand will now work on implementing the Convention. This must include a framework for promoting, protecting and monitoring implementation. .

The Human Rights Commission website has links to:

  • general information about the Convention
  • the Convention in accessible and other formats for different audiences
  • resources for teaching about the Convention
  • more detailed information about the processes associated with ratification, implementation and monitoring of the Convention.

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