Wednesday 19 March 2025, 14.00-15.30

Hybrid: in person in Room C17 Monica Partridge Building, University Park, Nottingham, and online via MS teams

In the context of assisted dying three ethical principles which we apply to decisions about how we should live potentially conflict:

(i) the sanctity of life; (ii) individual autonomy or the right of self-determination, that is, respect for the individual human being and in particular for their right to choose how they should live their own life and how to end it; (iii) respect for the dignity of the individual human being. How potential conflicts between those principles are resolved is the task currently being faced by the UK Parliament in its consideration of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. This Seminar examines various legal and medical dimensions of Assisted Dying. In particular, it focuses on its compatibility with human rights, comparative experience in Canada, and issues relating to Capacity, Disability, Medicalisation and Judicialisation.

Registration:

You can register to attend here

Event Programme:

14.00-14.05: Introduction to the Seminar: Chair: Professor Dominic McGoldrick (University of Nottingham)

14.05-14.20: Part I: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Overview of the Bill; the domestic and European Convention on Human Rights legal positions; Dr Grace Carter, University of Nottingham

14.20-14.30: Discussion

14.30-14.45: Part II: A Comparative Perspective: Lessons from the Canadian experience with Assisted Dying; Professor Mona Gupta, University of Montreal

14.45-14.55: Discussion

14.55-15.20: Part III: Issues Relating to Capacity/ Disability/ Medicalisation and Judicialisation; Peter Edwards, Solicitor (specialist on capacity); Professor Peter Bartlett, University of Nottingham

15.20-15.30: Discussion

Biographies

Chair: Dominic McGoldrick is Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Nottingham. He is currently the Head of the HRLC’s Civil and Political Rights Unit. He has published on extensively on international human rights issues including on the right to life, on discrimination, and on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Speakers:

Grace Carter is an Assistant Professor based at the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. Her research interests include mental capacity law, self-binding directives, personhood of persons with mental health difference and supported decision making. Grace is a member of the Mental Diversity Law Network, organising their annual PGR/EC Seminar Day, and leads the Law and Social Justice Research Group at the School of Law. She has advised NICE on support in adult social care, assisted in a school response to the Mental Health Bill, and has assisted the CRPD Committee on a report related to the Sustainable Development Goals. Grace has recently been appointed a co-director of the WHO collaborative centre on Mental Health and Human Rights.

Mona Gupta is a psychiatrist and researcher in bioethics at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal. She is also Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Addictions at the Université de Montréal. She served as Chair of the Federal Government's Expert Panel on MAID and mental illness as well as Health Canada's Task Group on MAID Practice Standards.

Peter Edwards is a Solicitor specializing in issues of mental capacity. He is a member of the Mental Health Tribunal Panel and a member of, and former President of, the Mental Health Lawyers Association (MHLA). He has been appointed an ‘Accredited Legal Representative’ by the Law Society which allows him to represent clients in the Court of Protection without a litigation friend. He is an honorary senior lecturer at Edge Hill University and also lectures at Chester University. He also run Peter Edwards Law Training. This provides practical legal training across the range of mental health and capacity law issues. He has worked with the Isle of Man, Jersey and Gibraltar helping the development of their mental health and capacity laws, and been a legal consultant to the World Health Organisation. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 2016.

Peter Bartlett is Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Professor of Mental Health Law in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include both mental health and mental capacity law, focusing both on English domestic law and international human rights law in this area (mainly the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities). Professor Bartlett has taught health care law at Nottingham intermittently since 1994