Human dignity stands for the idea that every person has equal worth. Despite our differences, in our humanity, we are all equal. It is in dignity that we are united. Human dignity has existed since humans have existed. What has changed in the decades since the end of World War II is the ineluctable awareness that there is a legal right to have one’s dignity respected and protected and that violations of the right to dignity can be vindicated in court, something referred to as “human dignity rights.”

Dignity rights are the legal incorporation of these ideas for three key reasons. First, dignity rights reflect that human suffering is experienced not so much as violations of abstract rights such as that to due process, equal protection, liberty, or property, but as refutation of human dignity, that is, the equal worth of every human being. Second, dignity rights show that contemporary constitutional currency. Indeed, the constitutions of nearly 170 countries acknowledge a right to dignity in some way. Third, dignity rights fortify other rights. In addition to being a right in its own regard, dignity rights support a full spectrum of human rights that incorporate human dignity, including civil and political rights (e.g., freedom of speech, religion, participation and assembly), as well as socioeconomic and cultural rights, (e.g., rights to life, health, or a clean environment). These three reasons resonate more in an ever more complicated planet beset by emerging geopolitical, economic and environmental challenges – conflict, coup d’état, trade, travel, employment, education, migration, free speech, health care, incarceration, and climate change, among other things – hardly imaginable only a few generations ago. Simply, dignity rights matter now more than ever.