A/HRC/39/36 within the community, including peer support, and reminded participants that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities offered the legal framework to uphold the rights of people with psychosocial disabilities — including the exercise of legal capacity, free and informed consent, the right to live and be included in the community and the right to liberty and security, without discrimination. He welcomed the participation of rights holders, with their real-life experience, and called for a strengthening of the support for the framework provided by the Convention, which had already generated change in restoring respect for the autonomy, choices and rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities. 6. The Director-General of the International Labour Organization, Guy Ryder, expressed his organization’s commitment to join the collective efforts to promote mental well-being and the right to work of persons with mental health conditions. He pointed to stereotypes and discrimination within the workplace due to lack of awareness on the part of employers and recruiters, which led to exclusion and lower rates of participation in employment. He described the work that the International Labour Organization carried out with Member States and enterprises to identify good practices contributing to a more inclusive work environment, including through the provision of reasonable accommodation. He announced that the International Labour Conference would negotiate a new instrument against violence, stigmatization, discrimination and harassment at work. 7. An Assistant Director-General of WHO, Dr. Svetlana Akselrod, underscored the importance of prioritizing, in the discussions, the voices of people with real-life experience. Referring to the constitution of WHO, which referred to mental health, she admitted that little progress had been made to advance mental health as a human right. She affirmed that people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities lacked access to quality services that were respectful of their rights and dignity, and faced marginalization, frequently being institutionalized and more likely than the general population to die prematurely. She drew attention to the adoption by the World Health Assembly of a mental health action plan guided by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other international human rights instruments. She referred to the QualityRights initiative, which had resulted in a significant shift in human rights awareness by mental health workers, decreased violence and abuse, and increased empowerment of people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities. 8. The Permanent Representative of Portugal to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Pedro Nuno Bártolo, highlighted mental health as an important frontier of human rights, and welcomed the transformative nature of Human Rights Council resolution 36/13 on mental health and human rights, which reflected States’ individual responsibilities within their societies as well as the collective responsibility to uphold the principles of humanity, dignity and equality at the global level. The resolution broke new ground, by moving away from the perpetuation of violations through arbitrary institutionalization, exclusion and segregation and moving towards a human rights-based approach. Collaborative efforts were needed to address the discrimination, stigma, violence, abuse, torture and degrading treatment or punishment that continued to have an impact on persons with mental health conditions and persons with psychosocial disabilities. He highlighted the support from the United Nations system, particularly the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and WHO, including the latter’s QualityRights initiative, as well as the work by the three special rapporteurs on the panel, and reaffirmed the new approach to mental health, which was based on human rights. He said that mental health conditions were just one incident away from each one of us, and yet there was still a major stigma attached to them. He concluded by recalling the golden rule of all civilizations: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and do naught unto others that you would not have them do unto you. 9. The Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Maria Nazareth Farani Azevêdo, was hopeful that the consultation could leverage efforts to ensure that mental health policies and practices were aligned with human rights law. She affirmed that the right to mental and physical health implied negative and positive obligations, including access to universal health coverage, and the adoption of non-discriminatory laws, policies, practices and responses to 4