A/HRC/44/48 recovery communities and community development models. 40 A quiet revolution has been occurring in neighbourhoods and communities worldwide. At the root of these alternatives is a deep commitment to human rights, dignity and non-coercive practices, all of which remain an elusive challenge in traditional mental health systems too heavily reliant on a biomedical paradigm. 55. By labelling these innovations as “alternatives”, it paradoxically renders them easier to ignore as not a part of mainstream efforts to transform mental health. However, such alternatives are essential to the transformation required to support the right to mental health globally. As such, there is a need to shift the language around alternatives and replace it with “rights-based supports”. 56. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the efforts of WHO to undertake a scoping study to gather information on promising practices that step outside the traditional biomedical framework. Attention should also be drawn to growing international networks, scholarship and platforms that serve as important outlets to disperse learning and experiences to a broader community.41 It is vital to have more stories and experiences that highlight such innovations (and their struggles) in progress. That expands understanding beyond standard medicalized solutions to human problems. While many understand their challenges through a medical lens, many do not. It is crucial to build space for a diversity of creative approaches and experiences within and outside existing mental health systems. 57. As these innovations emerge, it is essential to establish a baseline to both guide and assess compliance with the right to health, particularly in the light of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is still far too little literature dedicated to this operational area of rights-based implementation and the Special Rapporteur calls on the international donor community to support further human rights research, which is essential to guide global, regional and national efforts to scale up rights-based support and facilitate a radical shift away from coercion. The key principles set out below are grounded in the right to health and infused by the principles of the Convention. They should be viewed as a minor contribution to rights-based frameworks aimed at furthering efforts that will guide transformative rights-based practices within existing mental health systems and beyond. C. Key principles Dignity and autonomy 58. At the centre of rights-based support are the dignity and well-being of those accessing and using services. People must be empowered, through adequate support if needed, to make independent and informed decisions about their lives, including their mental health care. Social inclusion 59. Securing interpersonal, community and broader connections with society is an essential psychosocial determinant of mental health and vital to the promotion and protection of the right to mental health, including at the intervention level. Social exclusion is a universal experience for persons with intellectual, cognitive or psychosocial disabilities, which symbolizes a core obstacle to recovery and the full enjoyment of their right to mental health. Exclusion emerges from discriminatory structural factors, including harmful mental health legislation, cultures of institutional and segregated care and inherent power asymmetries in policy and clinical practice that actively undermine users of services as passive recipients of care instead of the active rights holders they are. 40 41 14 Piers Gooding and others, Alternatives to Coercion in Mental Health Settings: a Literature Review, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne (2018); Peter Stastny and Peter Lehmann, eds., Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry (Berlin, Peter Lehmann Publishing, 2007). See, for example, International Network towards Alternatives and Recovery, Mad in America, Bapu Trust Seher community mental health and inclusion program and Shaping Our Lives: a national network of service users and disabled people.