This article is about how the term dignity is used. 'Dignity and Diplomacy' is the title of the section that discusses dignity as it is used by international organizations, governments, bioethicists, academics, and the general public. The section ends with a discussion of how someone might understand what those who use dignity mean by it. 'Dignity and Dogma' is the title of the section which presents dignity as it used in a religious context.

Dignity and diplomacy

Through much of the 20^th Century, dignity appeared in assorted writings as a reason for peacemaking and for promoting human rights. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, speaks in its preamble of "the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." Later proclamations speak of dignity in the same way. The American Convention on Human Rights (1969), art. 11(1), proclaims, "Everyone has the right to have his honor respected and his dignity recognized." The African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (1981), art. 5, insists, "Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being."

In the latter half of the 20th century, dignity became a reason to curtail genetic research and to regulate human reproduction. In 1996, the Council of Europe used dignity for this purpose in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine. In 1998, the United Nations mentioned dignity in the UNESCO Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights. At Article 24, the Declaration says that germ-line treatment "could be contrary to human dignity." The Commentary which accompanies the Declaration says that, as a consequence of the possibility of germ-line treatment, "it is the very dignity of the human race which is at stake."

At the beginning of the 21^st Century, dignity was a reason to curtail human rights and to foment strife. Clergy and laity invoked dignity to explain their agreement with the anti-human-rights resolutions that were being approved by the United Nations. Those resolutions bid all nations to impose legal sanctions upon blasphemy (defamation of religion) and upon all conduct that a religious person might find offensive. One archbishop favored legal sanctions because, he said, it is "the manipulation and defamation of religion which threatens human dignity, rights, peace and security." One law professor hoped "the law against defamation of religions may be constructed in a way that does not abridge legitimate speech including artistic freedom and yet protects the dignity of religion."

As the 20^th Century was turning into the 21^st, not everyone was invoking dignity for the purpose of restricting rights. Switzerland, for example, was resisting the trend. To the dignity of humans and to the dignity of religion, Switzerland, by its Constitution in 1992, added a third idea: the dignity of all living beings. The Constitution says Swiss citizens must respect the dignity of animals, the dignity of vegetation, and the dignity of other organisms. Accordingly, the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH)(Switzerland) published a brochure in 2008 about how researchers can respect the dignity of plants.