ABSTRACT
Human dignity is a ubiquitous concept on the European legal and political landscape. Thirty-seven constitutions adopted since 1945 explicitly invoke it as a grounding norm. The Basic Law (Grundgesetz) of Germany, for example, holds that “Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is the duty of all state authority.” Human dignity likewise serves as the core normative principle of myriad international instruments, including the seminal and much-revered Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declares the recognition “of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” to be “the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world” (Schulman 2008: 12–13). In addition to anchoring the apparatus of human rights erected by European constitutions and key declarations and conventions, human dignity is likewise the pole star of intergovernmental instruments relating to bioethics. To take but three examples among many, UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention of Human Rights and Biomedicine (also known as the Oviedo Convention), and the United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning all cite the protection and promotion of human dignity as their foundational purpose and key animating rationale.
