A/HRC/34/32 transparent and accessible mechanisms for participation are established or strengthened at community, subnational and national levels.49 4. Resources 45. As noted above, the current expenditure on mental health falls far short of need and fails to meet the requirement in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to use the maximum available resources. In order to address this, priority should be given to the development and adequate resourcing of human rights-based strategies and plans on mental health, informed by the law and policy review recommended above. Resources should, among other things, be directed towards: (a) raising the quality of health care as well as ensuring availability, accessibility and acceptability; (b) improving working conditions for mental health personnel; (c) strengthening health workforce training, including in human rights; (d) ensuring the provision of the full range of support services; (e) achieving equality between mental and physical health services across all domains, including resource allocation, research and data; (f) emergency mental health services; (g) community-based mental health services; (h) mental health promotion;50 and (i) ensuring access to education, adequate housing, support for securing and retaining employment, and social protection 46. An overarching principle which should inform policy in this area is the duty of States to invest resources in practices that uphold human rights and to adopt “do no harm” evaluation criteria to avoid further human rights violations. Indeed, resource allocation towards existing practices in mental health, which are contrary to international human rights standards, may amplify the impact of harmful practices. 5. Accountability 47. Monitoring, review, remedial measures and corrective action, guided by human rights-based, context-specific indicators, are cornerstones of any accountability framework.51 Accountability should have as both a goal and a result the empowerment of users, persons with mental health conditions and those with psychosocial disabilities, including through legal and policy measures to ensure their participation in priority-setting and policy formulation, implementation and review, and to ensure access to remedial measures where appropriate.52 48. Ensuring access to justice in accordance with article 13 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is essential to guaranteeing the redress of and reparations for human rights violations, including arbitrary detention on the basis of impairment. Effective remedies, available on an expedited basis, should be in place to challenge the deprivation of liberty and uphold the principle of informed consent to medical treatment. Practices that effectively deny fair trial rights (such as the denial of legal capacity by requiring a guardian to act on a person’s behalf), or that may prevent access to legal remedies (such as mandatory legal representation), should be discontinued and prohibited by law. 49. Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities calls for the establishment of independent monitoring mechanisms for all services and facilities serving 49 50 51 52 14 Jyoti Sanghera and others, “Human rights in the new Global Strategy”, BMJ (September 2015). Mackenzie and Kesner, “Mental health funding and the SDGs”, p. 12. Independent Accountability Panel, “2016: Old challenges, new hopes. Accountability for the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health” (2016), pp. 9-11. Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, “Keeping promises, measuring results” (2011), p. 7.