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Human rights and the trauma model: Genuine partners or uneasy allies?
Author(s) -
Steel Zachary,
Bateman Steel Catherine R.,
Silove Derrick
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.20449
Subject(s) - human rights , cultural rights , politics , refugee , political science , mental health , international human rights law , context (archaeology) , law , sociology , criminology , medicine , psychiatry , paleontology , biology
Since World War II, a comprehensive body of international law has developed to protect and promote human rights. Three generations of rights can be delineated: civil and political; economic, social and cultural; and collective rights. The convergence of a medical rights‐based campaign in the late 1970s with the emergence of the new trauma model resulted in mental health professionals playing a prominent role in documenting and protecting civil and political rights. Economic, social, and cultural rights also emerged as being pivotal, particularly in the Australian context as mental health professionals began to work with excluded populations such as asylum seekers. Consideration of third‐generation rights raises important questions about the responsibilities facing mental health professionals applying the trauma model to non‐Western settings.