The emergence of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020 presented new and urgent challenges to mental health services and legislators around the world. This special issue of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry explores mental health law, mental capacity law, and medical and legal ethics in the context of COVID-19. Papers are drawn from India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, and the United States. Together, these articles demonstrate the complexity of psychiatric and legal issues prompted by COVID-19 in terms of providing mental health care, protecting rights, exercising decision-making capacity, and a range of other topics. While further work is needed in many of these areas, these papers provide a strong framework for addressing key issues and meeting the challenges that COVID-19 and, possibly, other outbreaks are likely to present in the future.

2019年底和2020年初COVID-19（冠状病毒）大流行的出现给全球精神卫生服务机构和立法者提出了新的紧迫挑战。《国际法律与精神病学杂志》特刊在COVID-19的背景下探讨心理健康法，心理能力法以及医学和法律伦理。论文来自印度，澳大利亚，英国，爱尔兰，德国，葡萄牙和美国。这些文章共同证明了COVID-19所引发的精神病和法律问题的复杂性，它们在提供精神保健，保护权利，行使决策能力以及一系列其他主题方面。尽管在这些领域中的许多领域都需要进一步的工作，但这些论文为解决关键问题和应对COVID-19以及未来可能爆发的其他疫情提供了一个强大的框架。