Violations of these fundamental rights will impair mental health and have negative consequences on social life, and interpersonal relations.

In recent years, we witness an upsurge in attention paid to ethical aspects of the psychiatric profession, and the civil rights of persons with mental illness.

Today the psychiatric profession is guided by a number of declarations. Some are common to all medical professionals e.g. WMA Tokyo Declaration, others reflect the psychiatric profession with the Madrid Declaration providing the key guidelines. Much attention is paid to alleged political abuse where e.g. psychiatric care and diagnoses have been used on non-mentally ill persons. To avoid this, a psychiatric diagnosis should be determined according to internationally accepted standards and difficulty in adapting to social values should not be considered mental illness.

Now focus is directed towards improving conditions and rights of marginalized groups and efforts to find the best local development and empowerment for people with mental illnes. International cooperation is needed to alleviate inferior conditions and support development.

The world is becoming more global.

With the focus on terrorism in recent years there is increasing concern that fundamental human rights may be violated in the interest to combat acts of terrorism. Knowledge about the mental health consequences of state perpetrated violence is thus of clear clinical relevance for psychiatrists worldwide as a significant proportion of e.g. refugees and migrants have experiences of war, persecution and a large proportion of the worlds population live in countries that condone such violations.