Mental Capacity Law in New Zealand is a comprehensive text on the legal position of people who lack capacity, in many different contexts, including their position regarding health care, residential placement, property management, and participation in legal proceedings. General Editors Iris Reuvecamp and John Dawson have assembled a team of subject matter experts from both legal and medical backgrounds who cover all major areas of the law of mental capacity in New Zealand (except the criminal law).

The Law Society and British Medical Association have produced a new edition of their practical guidelines on the assessment of mental capacity for all professionals working with people who lack, or who may lack, capacity to make decisions.

This guide on assessment of people with some sort of mental impairment is a broad ranging report produced jointly by the British Medical Association and the Law Society. It is an authoritative statement on an important area. Its wide ranging coverage makes it essential reading for these groups. The second edition has been revised throughout to bring it right up to date with present requirements.

The ability to make decisions and take actions that influence our life is critically important, and ranges from simple everyday choices about what to eat or wear, to far-reaching decisions about health care and personal or financial matters. When our ability to make our own decisions is impaired, whether due to dementia, learning or intellectual disability, mental illness or brain injury, that might mean we are not able to make decisions for ourselves. So, there is a need for clear assessment processes to help decide whethersomeone has the capacity to make their own decisions, who should make decisions on their behalf, and on what basis such decisions should be made. The guidance in this book has been written to serve the needs of doctors, lawyers, health practitioners, families andwhanau. It is written by experts from a range of disciplines including law, medicine and ethics, and is based on the Toolkit for Assessing Capacity. It combines an explanation of the law, case studies and practical guidance for health and legal practitioners about capacity, how it is assessed, and what supporting people with impaired capacity means in practice.

Medical Law in New Zealand is an authoritative account of the law relating to health care in New Zealand. Litigation involving doctors established many of the relevant principles, but these principles apply equally to other health practitioners in their relations with patients. The book deals with matters that extend across this wide range of health practice.

'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted while the world remained deeply shocked by the atrocities committed during the Second World War, was an inspirational creation. ... It is hard to conceive of this document being adopted today. Like most other nations, New Zealand has succumbed to a kind of world-weary acceptance that full enjoyment of universal human rights remains a distant dream.' Preface, Dame Silvia Cartwright, PCNZM, DBE, QSO New Zealand is proud of its human rights record with good reason. It was the first country in the world to give women the vote and it played a prominent part in the establishment of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New Zealand recently took a leading role in the creation of the world’s newest human rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But just how good are things in practice? Are our governments living up to the promises they make when they ratify human rights treaties? Human Rights in New Zealand is a comprehensive survey of the seven major international human rights treaties which New Zealand has signed and ratified, as well as the Universal Periodic Review. Based on four years of research, undertaken with the support of the New Zealand Law Foundation, this book concludes that significant faultlines are emerging in the human rights landscape. It sets out an agenda for change with recommendations for practical action.

Mental Health Law in New Zealand 2nd Edition is a unique guide to the interaction between the mental health system and the law in New Zealand. This book displays a sound understanding of the complex clinical realities that arise in this area of medical practice, and is aimed at mental health professionals, psychiatric social workers, caregivers, advocacy groups, lawyers, and medical, social science and law students.

From a review in the Australian Law Journal:"This book is a delightful surprise, for within its bare title the authors have covered the law concerning powers of attorney on both sides of the Tasman. The text is written in a clear and lucid fashion. It is well laid out, and provides in convenient form the texts of the relevant legislation applying throughout Australia and in New Zealand. It provides an accurate summary of the law as applying at the end of 1992. The index is unusually comprehensive, and the coverage of this area of law is thoroughly professional. It should prove to be a most useful text for practitioners in areas of company law, probate, and family law who will appreciate the specimen forms and clauses offered. It is so wide in its potential utility that (given its sensible price) it should be on every solicitor's bookshelf."

There has been much debate about mental health law reform and mental capacity legislation in recent years with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also having a major impact on thinking about the issue. This edited volume explores the concept of ‘coercive care’ in relation to individuals such as those with severe mental illnesses, those with intellectual and cognitive disabilities and those with substance use problems. With a focus on choice and capacity the book explores the impact of and challenges posed by the provision of care in an involuntary environment. The contributors to the book look at mental health, capacity and vulnerable adult’s care as well as the law related to those areas. The book is split into four parts which cover: human rights and coercive care; legal capacity and coercive care; the legal coordination of coercive care and coercive care and individuals with cognitive impairments. The book covers new ground by exploring issues arising from the coercion of persons with various disabilities and vulnerabilities, helping to illustrate how the capacity to provide consent to treatment and care is impaired by reason of their condition.

The text takes the perspective of international human rights law, describes what it requires, and then analyses the extent to which New Zealand law complies with it. It is intended to be an authoritative text that can be cited in courts and be the book of choice for human rights courses; it should also play a role in the development of New Zealand law by reference to international human rights standards. Written by many of New Zealand's leading human rights law experts, the tone and content of the chapters combines the substance of sound legal academic analysis with the practicality of a book that can be used in practice by judges, lawyers, NGOs and activists. The book will appeal to both the academic and practitioner markets.