We can learn a lot from how other countries with other legal codes and other human rights traditions have solved the problem. CSVR and Dr Ray Travers of Rampton Hospital are planning an international conference for 2001 which will bring leading ethicists and forensic professionals from across Europe to the UK to discuss these issues. The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was extended significantly by the European Social Charter, which was most recently modified in 1996. Currently a draft Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of the European Union is in development, which a recent committee of experts has recommended should incorporate both the European Convention and the Social Charter. For some time, members of the CSVR have been working with the European Association for Psychotherapy to extend the interpretation of Article 11 of the Social Charter, the article on the right to protection of health, to include the freedom from involuntary emotional suffering within health.
Violence is a major cause of emotional suffering.
As organizations of health professionals have recognized for years, suffering is not just caused by violent acts by individuals but may also be a consequence of Governments' readiness to engage in armed conflict. Both the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Medact in the UK have campaigned for the abolition of war, although neither has stressed the emotional suffering that war causes. CSVR, as an organization with a strong psychotherapeutic emphasis, has been concerned with the emotional suffering caused by armed conflict. With the support of one of the CSVR's advisory board, the Right Hon. Its members are professionally committed to the prevention and remediation of the involuntary emotional suffering of their clients and, more generally, of every European citizen.