Marking the 75th anniversary of the ECHR, the Global Justice Academy hosted an event welcoming Dr Elaine Webster, from the University of Strathclyde. This engaging session offered insight into her research, which interrogates the relationship between the concept of human dignity and human rights law, focusing on themes of consensus, contestation, and culture. Subsequently, Dr Webster invited participants to reflect on the ways in which the concept of dignity might play a role in building and embedding a more entrenched public culture of human rights.
Often heralded as a central pillar underpinning both the drafting and adoption of international human rights frameworks, the consensus around the importance of the concept of dignity is exemplified through its prevalence in the text of several human rights documents. Dr Webster highlighted how, inter alia, the UN Charter Preamble mentions the ‘dignity and worth of the human person’, with the ICCPR and ICESCR describing the ‘inherent dignity of the human person’. Dr Webster’s research predominantly focuses on the ECHR. She emphasised the importance of interrogating what dignity truly means, lest such frequent references to dignity within human rights frameworks should reduce it to a norm which is invoked ritualistically, with little regard for its substantive or practical implications.
Engaging with the ways in which the language of dignity has been contested, Dr Webster explained how definitions and interpretations of dignity have subsequently been the subject of academic contention. She described dignity as ‘seemingly vague but intuitively personal’ in character. To elaborate, Dr Webster referred to Schachter’s (1983) reflection: ‘I know it when I see it, even if I cannot tell you what it is’, implying that whilst dignity seems amorphous and difficult to define, it is almost instinctively recognisable. She also advanced the compelling argument that the prospect of a ‘loss of dignity’ is almost a contradiction in terms; the innate character of dignity is such that it can never be ‘lost’ per se. Whilst dignity may appear to be a considerably subjective concept to be relied upon in terms of legal doctrine, Dr Webster explained how it could be interpreted as an illuminating value to help us understand the meaning of rights, and envision how they might be realised. In this way, dignity informs the way rights manifest and materialise, for example within international human rights frameworks, before subsequently informing the ways outcomes should look regarding adjudication, and judicial decision-making. Therefore, Dr Webster considered some relevant questions which might frame how we perceive the relationship between dignity and rights: how rights protect dignity, and how dignity itself constitutes the objective of the right concerned. Relatedly, Dr Webster also referred to Waldron’s contention that understanding what is so important about a particular right is essential when advancing rights-based claims in order to demonstrate why its violation would be wrong.
Dr Webster discussed another aspect of the intuitive character of dignity; it is advantageous in that nobody can have the monopoly on the language of dignity. This perspective illustrates how dignity is able to provide such a cogent normative basis for underpinning human rights frameworks, and for opposing encroachments upon them. For example, she lauded the concept’s propensity to encompass a range of different worldviews, thus it is not constrained by Eurocentricity. Furthermore, she advanced the position that, when interpreting dignity, one should refrain from centring conceptualisations which would restrain its capacity to be a cross-cultural consensus-generating norm.
It is advantageous that nobody can monopolise the language of dignity. However, Dr Webster also discussed how the open-textured nature of such language can enable this concept to be appropriated, citing the example of the open letter in May 2025, whereby nine states, which are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, expressed desires for the European Court of Human Rights to allow for less stringent standards when it comes to the deportation of illegal migrants from their territories. The letter describes how the member states ‘believe deeply in the inviolable dignity of the individual’, yet their support for this inviolability could be called into question, as the letter subsequently expresses opposition to cases where the Convention enabled the ‘wrong people’ to be protected, thereby curtailing the ability of states to decide whom to expel from their territories. This exemplifies how the use of the language of dignity can be subject to contestation. However, Dr Webster argued that when human rights law is under attack, advocates need to be able to justify the legal regime with something outside of its scope. As such, she posits that this example shows precisely why interrogating the concept of dignity is beneficial; doing so could equip advocates with the means to disavow hollow rhetorical commitments to dignity, which obfuscate more sinister undertones.
Finally, Dr Webster also reflected on how the concept of dignity might play a role in building and embedding a wider public culture of human rights. She discussed how discourse, institutions and practices within the socio-political sphere could anchor human rights law more deeply within societal values. In this way, using the language of dignity to embed a human rights-based culture within society could benefit public international law overall. The intuitive character of dignity would make it a useful means through which to achieve this; Dr Webster elaborated that, rather than being a strictly legalistic concept, dignity is understood beyond the law. From this perspective, the capacity for the language of dignity to bring consensus is evident; rather than being exclusive to the judicial sphere, it has the propensity to pluralistically include grassroots voices.
In her conclusion, and in subsequent discussions with participants, Dr Webster further emphasised the importance of constantly defending interpretations of the language of dignity, which underpin human rights protections, particularly where international human rights protections intersect or conflict with public and political debates. Furthermore, collaborative engagement on the themes of Dr Webster’s research highlighted the importance for human rights advocates to prevail in discursive struggles concerning the language of dignity within human rights law, and in so doing, contest interpretations which may ultimately undermine its essential meaning.
by Antonia Lockyer, LLM Candidate at the University of Edinburgh
