Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. Every human being has the basic right of respect both of himself and by his fellow man. Every person has the right to freedom and to express his moral beliefs though words and actions that will help him grow as he uses his talents to help others. People have the right to be free of fear. They have the right to find peace in the understanding and acceptance of who they are, but only to the extent that their rights do not intrude on the rights and beliefs of others. Each person’s rights end where the dignity of others begins.
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Adopted in 1948), Article 1 states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Dignity isn’t something that people earned because of their class, race, or another advantage. It is something all humans are born with. Simply by being human, all people deserve respect. Human rights naturally spring from that dignity.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted in 1966, continued this understanding. The preamble reads that “…these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.”
This belief goes hand in hand with the universality of human rights. Fast forward to today, and the idea is pretty much established everywhere. In the past, only people made dignified by their status were given respect and rights. By redefining dignity as something inherent to everyone, it also establishes universal rights.
Advocates of human rights and different social movements resort to human dignity in order to justify their claims and their actions. The attack against global poverty, the fight against discrimination, torture and inhumane treatments, and the condemnation of injustice, are all grounded in the notion of human dignity.
According to the chapter ‘The Role of Human Dignity in Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals‘ written by James R. May and Erin Daly, published on SSRN- dignity has six interconnected elements. First, each person –every member of the human family – has value; no one can be dismissed, ignored, mistreated, or abused as if their humanity means nothing. Dignity stands for the proposition that each person’s humanity means something and has worth. Each person has a right to live as if his or her life matters and to be treated ‘as a person’.
Second, each person’s worth is equal to every other person’s. No one’s life is more important than any other person’s life. Despite our differences, in our humanity, we are all equal. It is in dignity that we are united.
Third, dignity inheres in the human person. Dignity also exists regardless of the conditions in which people live: pollution, poverty, discrimination and so on threaten the ability to live with dignity, but human dignity remains inviolable and inherent in the human person.
Thus, fourth, dignity is universal; it applies to every ‘member of the human family’, wherever and whenever they live.
Fifth, dignity instantiates rights. Once we know dignity, we must assure that people have the right to claim all other rights that will protect their dignity.
And sixth, it represents a quality of life that every person is entitled to, which includes opportunities for human flourishing.
Considering the above mentioned six points, it is absolutely just to say that human dignity is at the heart of human rights. Therefore, the equality of dignity must be taken seriously: no one has the right to control or limit the exercise of another person’s dignity. Relatedly, equality is not served when some fraction of the human population have their dignity realized while others do not.
Sustainable practices are necessary to protect human dignity and the full achievement of human dignity for all will ensure that development will proceed sustainably.
Advancing human dignity is the thread that stitches the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) together. Thus, the concerns of the SDGs –poverty, hunger and lack of education, equality and access to justice – can be affronts to dignity. Peaceful and inclusive societies based on human dignity will conduce to sustainable development.
So, it is very important to understand that sustainability can be better advanced if we understand the goal to protect human dignity.
Dignity is the thread that runs through the SDGs, weaving them together into a comprehensive tapestry that will improve the lives of its human inhabitants.
To sum up, sustainability’s virtue is in promoting the fundamental precept of
human dignity: recognizing the equal worth of everyone, everywhere.