•
World Health Organisation Guidelines for the Promotion of Human Rights of Persons with
Mental Disorders.126
The above Principles expressly forbid intrusive and irreversible treatments without informed
consent, including psychosurgery and experimental treatment.127 According to the Special
Rapporteur on Torture, these practices may constitute ill-treatment or, in certain
circumstances, torture.128
Medical and scientific experimentation
International instruments also refer to the link between medical experimentation and the
prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment. The following provisions relate to medical
experimentation:
•
The prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment in Article 7 of the ICCPR states that “no
one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation .”
International law has evolved so that any consent must also be fully informed.
•
Principle 22 of the Principles for Persons under Detention states that “[n]o detained or
imprisoned person shall, even with his consent, be subjected to any medical or scientific
experimentation which may be detrimental to his health.”
•
Article 8(2)(b)(x) of the Rome Statute defines ‘war crimes’ as including “[s]ubjecting
persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or
scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or
hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which
cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons”. In order to
126
Division of mental health and prevention of substance abuse, WHO, Geneva, WHO/MNH/MND/95.4.
Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care 1991,
Principle 11.
128
Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture, ‘Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, 3 July 2003, A/58/2003 at [47].
127
90