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Constitutional Dignity: Lessons From Home And Abroad, Erin Daly

Erin Daly

The American Supreme Court has long recognized the dignity of states, especially in the recent spate of tenth and eleventh amendment cases. Yet, it has never fully embraced the concept of human dignity as part of its individual rights jurisprudence (though individual justices have done so). By contrast, courts around the world have increasingly recognized human dignity as an important, if not predominant, constitutional right. This article argues that both the American Supreme Court state sovereignty cases and the foreign human dignity cases evince an understanding of human dignity that is rooted in the idea of autonomy and self-determination. Defined …