Human Dignity and the European Convention on Human Rights

Abstract

Human dignity entered the field of human rights rather late and was generally seen as a response to the atrocities committed during World War II. It found its way into the United Nations (UN) Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and numerous other specific human rights treaties, but not into the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Only since 2002, with the adoption of Additional Protocol 13, has the ECHR included human dignity in its wording, but not as a separate human right. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to conclude that human dignity is not safeguarded in the ECHR. Instead, it can be seen from the European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) case law that the court quite often refers to human dignity. This chapter conducts a systematic review of the different approaches used by the ECtHR and evaluates the persuasive success of the multiple-tiers approach used by the court, taking into account its acceptance in the States parties to the ECHR.