Does following the law guarantee the satisfaction of the needs of the people and uplift the people's dignity? Why?
Answers
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A human rights approach to fisheries currently faces several conceptual pitfalls.
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Human dignity is a complementary concept that can help mitigate these pitfalls.
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This article elaborates upon the link between human rights and human dignity.
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Human rights should be ultimately about advancing the dignity of fishers/communities.
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Human dignity can serve as a foundational value for human rights implementation.
What is meant by human dignity?
The widespread appeal and usage of human dignity
Human dignity is a familiar concept in human rights discourse. In fact, it is prominently featured in major international and national legal instruments and humanitarian policy documents. For instance, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” . Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights include language about dignity both in their Preambles and in the texts of several articles. Furthermore, the major conventions on the Rights of Children, the Rights of Migrant Workers, and the Rights of Disabled Persons have all included references to dignity, affirming its significance in the human rights context.
A major impetus to the use of human dignity in the international sphere arose when it was used as the central organizing principle of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 . The ensuing Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted dignity in their provisions dealing with various areas of human rights, such as the right to development, the treatment of indigenous peoples, women's rights, and the abolition of extreme poverty and social exclusion. In fisheries, in addition to the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, human dignity is most recently cited in the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, as the term appears alongside human rights in three places in the text .
Human dignity is also explicitly codified in the domestic constitutions of many countries including Mexico, Germany, Italy, Cuba, Japan and South Africa . Most notably, the 1949 German Constitution (i.e., the Basic Law) declares in its very first sentence in Article 1 that: “the dignity of man is inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority”. Likewise, the South African Constitution has referred to human dignity as one of the founding principles of the Republic .
2.2. The meaning of human dignity vis-à-vis human rights
Given the frequent and pivotal mention of human dignity internationally and nationally, it becomes crucial to understand its meaning in relation to the human rights perspective. Many scholars have theorized that human dignity can be viewed not only as an independent moral-philosophical standard, but also as the source of human rights, that is, the supreme value upon which a list of rights derives . In other words, human dignity forms an a priori justification for the existence of human rights, and in turn human rights becomes a means to realizing human dignity [46]. Support for such reasoning is evidenced in major international declarations such as the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. For instance, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states in the Preamble that “these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person” . Similarly, the Basic Law in Germany proclaims that respect for human dignity is the reason why “the German people acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world” . Interestingly, an anecdote involving Eleanor Roosevelt, the first chairperson of the preliminary UN Commission on Human Rights, reaffirms this connection. When responding to a question about the use of human dignity in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she was reported to have said that it was included “in order to emphasize that every human being is worthy of respect… it was meant to explain why human beings have rights to begin with”.
Human dignity can be further distinguished from human rights in terms of its universal scope across cultures. While human rights standards are somewhat contentiously regarded as “an artifact of modern Western civilization” lacking cultural basis in non-Western places see Amartya Sen's rebuttal , it is generally understood that the notion of human dignity has developed in all societies .