Welcome to e-include, the e-journal of Inclusion Europe.

The Mental Disability Advocacy Centre is an organisation that fights for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities. They have a new Honorary President called Thomas Hammaberg. Thomas Hammaberg has worked for many years defending the rights of people including the rights of people with intellectual disabilities.

On April 2, 2012, Thomas Hammarberg was appointed Honorary President of the Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC). He is an expert in human rights issues, and has previously worked on the rights of people with disabilities, producing several short papers on subjects such as legal capacity, monitoring institutions, and political participation during his mandate as Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

Indeed, before his designation as Honorary President he served as the second Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe. At the time, Mr Hammarberg sought to integrate the rights of people with intellectual disabilities into his Office mandate. To this end, he produced several viewpoints on legal capacity, monitoring institutions and the right to political participation. Following a country visit to Bulgaria in 2009 he wrote a section on the rights of children with disabilities in his resultant country report. In 2012 he published two commissioned issue papers, one on legal capacity and the other on the right to be included in the community.

Prior to his role as Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Hammarberg held various senior human rights appointments including Secretary General of Amnesty International, Secretary General of the Olof Palme International Center, Ambassador of the Swedish Government on Humanitarian Affairs, and Secretary General of Save the Children Sweden.

On his appointment Thomas Hammaberg said “In my time as Commissioner I focused on the rights of people who find themselves in situations of vulnerability. MDAC is a key organisation which understands the issues, and provokes governments to remind them of their human rights commitments. We need your support to continue the fight.”

Mental Disability Advocacy Center

The MDAC is an international human rights organisation advocating for the rights of children and adults with intellectual disabilities and psycho-social disabilities. MDAC uses law to promote equality and social inclusion through strategic litigation, advocacy, research and monitoring and capacity-building. MDAC operates at the global level as well as regional and domestic levels in Europe and Africa.

Source: MDAC

MDAC is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. The Open Society Foundations (OSF) founded MDAC and continues to be one of its donors. MDAC has participatory status with the Council of Europe. In 2011 MDAC was granted a special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.