Human Dignity in International Law: Issues and Challenges

• Author: Izabela Bratiloveanu
• Position: PhD in progress, Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences, University of Craiova, Craiova
• Pages: 154-160

European Integration - Realities and Perspectives

2012

154

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Human Dignity in International Law: Issues and Challenges

Izabela Bratiloveanu

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Abstract: We intend to present in this synthesis study the concept of human dignity, reviewing the main legal

instruments on the protection of human rights that defi nes it, concisely analysing the jurisprudence of the

European Court of Justice and of the European Court of Human Rights, focusing on the key moments of its

jurisprudential definition. Human dignity, through its continuously expending presence in international law

and through the controversies related to it, is an exciting and challenging topic of debate for Romanian and

foreign literature, being one of the issues and challenges of the new millennium.

Keywords: jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European

Union; jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights; international law

1. The Contribution of the Philosophical Currents to the Evolution of the Concept of

Human Dignity

The term, before appearing in international law, after the year 1945, as a reaction to the dramatic

events of the Second World War, was the object of philosophical and theological reflections. Thus, the

Greeks and the Romans didn`t know other dignities than those which resulted from the social class or

from the positions occupied.

(Pettiti, 1999, p. 53)

The notion of dignity, of laic origin in Antiquity, would acquire a religious connotation through the

Christian theologians. According to Ph. I. André-Vincent “The human dignity is, from an historical

point of view, a Christian concept. It is the result of reflections which were originated in the doctrine

of Calcedonia.” The first major reference to dignity is assigned either to Lactance, or to Gregory of

Nyssa (Ranson, 1995, p. 24) . In Christianity, the human dignity is founded on the creation of man in

the image of God and His redeeming work on man; therefore, according to the religious concept, the

individual that is protected is not man himself but the divine power which is expressed in man through

the dignity of the individual. Dignity becomes an attribute by excellence of the person, an expression

of his/her intrinsic humanity.

Throughout the centuries, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Giovanni Pico

della Mirandola, Leibniz, Locke, Schopenhauer, Schiller, Hegel, Stuart Mill, Feuerbach, Compte,

Kant, B. F. Skinner, Jürgen Habermas have reflected on this concept, this being only an attempt to

review them, without the claim of completeness of the numerous philosophers and theologians who

have tried to decipher the mystery of human dignity.

2. The Main International Documents wich Define the Concept of Human Dignity

As France Quéré rightfully states: “Before Auschwitz, man presented himself through the sculptural

beauty of the body, through his power to work, by his conflicts of honour and interests, by his natural

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PhD in progress, Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences, University of Craiova, Craiova, street Horia no 8, block E 2,

entrance.2, apartment 2, România, 0729948398, bratiloveanuisabela@yahoo.com.