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.

Dignity Now! is a platform for bolstering people’s sense of their own dignity, expanding awareness of dignity and dignity rights, and helping to bend the arc of the law toward dignity.

We work in partnership with local organizations throughout the world to develop educational campaigns for children and youth and opportunities for creative expressions of dignity. We provide expertise on dignity awareness and dignity rights. We make legal and academic resources freely available for anyone who wants to learn more.

This space is 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 movement!

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.

Our working model is to partner with local grassroots and educational institutions to develop projects that are grounded in local community values and framed in global human rights law.

Supporting Legal Claims

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. And it’s the recognition that everyone has the equal right to respect as a person.

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.

Dignity Rights are the legal rights that people have to protect their dignity. It was first coined in Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions, and the Worth of the Human Person which described how courts around the world are shaping the law to protect every person’s 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.

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.