Human Dignity in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

The chapter first gives several examples of where ‘dignity’ (or ‘a person’s dignity’, or ‘human dignity’) has been a central element in the reasoning of the Court, or in the arguments advanced by judges in separate opinions. Based on this analysis, the principal question addressed is why the Court draws on ‘dignity’, a word neither explicitly nor, implicitly mentioned in the text of the Convention or the Protocols. What are the reasons for having—or not having—recourse to the concept of dignity in judicial decisions? Is there any objective reason for such choice? Or does it depend on the subjective preferences of the judges sitting on the bench? Is ‘dignity’ necessary for judicial decision-making in order to reach a specific conclusion in a case? Or does ‘dignity’ simply reinforce the legal reasoning of the Court, enabling the Court to give more weight to the arguments of one of the parties in the case? Finally, the chapter looks for a possible conceptual link between human dignity and human rights, insofar as this arises from the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 21 citations exist upstream.