CSEL Current Projects Blog

Spent a fascinating day yesterday at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine (Queen Mary College, Univ. of London) at an event which drew together medics and lawyers to promote the new MSc in Mental Health and Law at Queen Mary, led by Profs. Kamaldeep Bhui and Richard Ashcroft.  We listened to human rights lawyer Professor Francois Hampson speaking about international laws covering armed combat, and how medical facilities are, in law, very well protected, but in practice things are changing. Prof. George Szmukler, visiting professor at the LSE, spoke about the differences in rights to refuse treatment between people with physical and mental illnesses, and Sanchita Hosali told us about the great work of the British Institute of Human Rights.  Prof. Kam Bhui outlined the forthcoming results of a fascinating project that has reviewed a broad literature in order to understand the development of individuals' sympathies for, and likelihood to be drawn into terrorism, applying a public health approach to understanding and intervening at the earliest possible stages to prevent terrorist attacks.  I of course talked about our work bringing psychological evidence into refugee law and pointed a few more people to our website for resources for their work.