Dignity Now!

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Bringing dignity to life.

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Dignity is the sense we all have of our own self-worth.  It’s the thing we carry with us throughout our lives, that moves us to speak our truth and inspires us to fight for justice.

Throughout the world, people are claiming human rights to have their dignity protected and promoted. And courts are responding: they’re securing people’s rights to live with dignity and insisting that people treat each other with dignity. Dignity is the connective tissue between the human heart and the law.

Dignity Now! works to strengthen that bond. We support and nurture the inherent sense of dignity of even the most vulnerable among us. We build dignity rights awareness and develop educational materials for and with young people. And we’re bending the arc of the law towards dignity.

This website is a free and global resource for anyone interested in how the idea of human dignity can change the way we think about law, justice, and the world we want to live in. We invite you to join this effort!

Strengthening human dignity

We want everyone to know that they are born with inherent, inalienable worth.

We work with children and youth and others in especially vulnerable situations to reinforce each person’s sense of self-worth by enhancing awareness and encouraging all forms of expression of dignity.

We have a growing collection of videos, six-word dignity stories, storyboards, music, and more. Check out our Dignity Stories pages and share your own.

Bending the arc of the law

When the law respects and promotes human dignity, that’s justice.

Almost every constitution on earth protects dignity and, every day, courts are reshaping the law around people’s needs to live with dignity and to be treated with dignity.

We work to support and encourage legal advocates, activists, judges, scholars, students, and others to bend the arc of the law toward dignity.

We have databases of constitutions and court cases, scholarly resources, a blog, and more. Check out our pages with resources for reshaping the law, and our Blog on current dignity issues.

Why Dignity?

What is dignity?

Why is everyone talking about it?

What are dignity rights?

Why should you care?

There’s no settled definition, but here’s a start: it’s a birthright that reflects the inherent, inalienable, inviolable, and equal worth of every person, everywhere. It’s the sense you have that your life matters.

Just after World War II, international law reaffirmed the inherent worth of “every member of the human family.” Since then, most international human rights instruments and more than 170 constitutions around the world have also recognized the primacy of human dignity. Now, courts everywhere are taking dignity seriously.

Again, no settled definition. We use it to refer to the legal rights we all have to protect our dignity. Courts have found that people have the right to live with dignity, to fully and freely develop their personality, to belong in society on an equal basis with others, and to be treated with dignity by others at all times. Most of the dignity rights that courts protect relate to one of these intrests.

Because you have human dignity and you want the law to protect it. And everyone should have the same rights to protect their sense of dignity.