Oliver Lewis

Oliver Lewis joined MDAC at its inception in 2002 as Legal Director and has been Executive Director since September 2006. Oliver has an LLB(Hons) in Laws from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), an MA in Medical Ethics and Law from King’s College, London, and in 2009 completed a distance-learning Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Open University Business School. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management (FinstLM).

Having previously worked as a research assistant in the UK's Department of Health on mental health law reform, he has been a recurrent Visiting Professor at the Legal Studies Department, Central European University in Budapest since 2002, where he teaches a course entitled "Mental Disability Law and Advocacy" to postgraduate human rights students. He is also a Fellow at CEU’s Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine. Oliver has given lectures and presentations at several universities around the world, and is a faculty member of the International Diploma on Mental Health Law and Human Rights, run by the Indian Law Society in Pune, India, in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Oliver is a member of the Bar of England and Wales and is an Associate Member of the human rights barristers' set Doughty Street Chambers, London. Oliver serves on the editorial board of the European Yearbook on European Disability Law.

Oliver's publications include:

Book
Bartlett, P., Lewis, O. and Thorold, O., (2007) Mental Disability and the European Convention on Human Rights, Martinus Nijhoff, the Netherlands. 377pp, foreword by Sir Nicolas Bratza, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights.

Book chapters
Lewis, O., ‘The expressive, educational and proactive roles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, in Rethinking Mental Health Laws, McSherry, B. and Waller, P. (eds), 2010, chapter 5, pp 97-128
Lewis O. and Bartlett, P., ‘Human Rights and Community Mental Health’ in Oxford Textbook of Community Mental Health, edited by Thornicroft, G. et al (forthcoming 2010)
Lewis, O. and Munro, P, ‘Civil Society Involvement in Mental Health Law and Policy Reform’ in Mental Health and Human Rights, edited by Dudley, M, Silove, D., Gale, F. Oxford University Press (forthcoming 2010)
Fiala, J. and Lewis, O., ‘Investigations After Death and European Law’ in Disabled People and the Right to Life: the protection and violation of disabled people’s most basic human right, in Clements, L. and Read, J. (eds), 2008, Routledge Publishing, UK.