Does Right to Life equate to Life with Dignity?

Maral Nosratzadeh Postgraduate Researcher and Teaching Assistant, University of Leeds, School of Law

This piece uses right to adequate housing as an example of economic social and culture rights (ESCR) to critically discuss the ways in which the courts in various jurisdictions have created an enforcement mechanism through an expansive interpretation of how the right to housing can be derived from the right to life. I argue that while the right to life has moved beyond being a negative obligation to states, the equation of the right to life with a right to live with dignity muddies the conceptual water.

Negative vs positive obligations

Traditionally, the right to life has been understood as imposing a negative obligation on states to refrain from arbitrarily depriving individuals of their right to life. (ECHR) ,Article 2.[1]

This narrow interpretation has been viewed as inadequate by Ramcharan,[2] who argues that the state’s obligation for the right to life has moved away from ensuring an individual’s survival, to a value-based approach underpinned by dignity. The Human Rights Committee also stated that the right to life is a right that should not be interpreted narrowly, but as the right to enjoy a life with dignity. [3]

Fredman argues that “it is too simplistic” to view civil and political rights such as the right to life as separate and distinct from socio-economic rights like the right to housing.[4]

In the case of Street Children, the inter-American Court of Human Rights acknowledged that:

“The fundamental right to life includes, not only the right of every human being not to be deprived of his life arbitrarily, but also the right that he will not be prevented from having access to the conditions that guarantee a dignified existence.”[5]

The UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing also highlighted that the right to life can be infringed without access to necessities such as housing.[6]

This expansive interpretation of the right to life has used the concept of dignity as the mediating idea in pushing the right to life beyond negative obligations While this piece acknowledges the ultimate benefits of this approach, it argues that equating the right to life with the right to living with dignity creates a problem: because there are disagreements around whether dignity should be viewed as a fundamental principle or as a stand-alone right, its value is disputed and confused. This is well illustrated in the extension of the right-to-life to a right to adequate housing.

Controversy around dignity

Despite the pivotal role of dignity in human rights adjudication, the meaning of dignity is highly contested, varying even within a specific context and across jurisdictions. Feldman claims that the notion of dignity “is culturally dependent and eminently malleable.”[7] This means that every jurisdiction draws a cultural understanding of what amounts to dignity, which is then reflected into how dignity is applied. Therefore, although dignity appears in many international and regional provisions, McCrudden has argued that dignity does not provide a universal tool to secure human rights, because beyond the “intrinsic worth” of human dignity, “there is little or no consensus as to what the concept of human dignity demands of law makers and adjudicators.” [8]

Even if a broad agreement of a minimum level of human dignity could be recognised, it is difficult to determine what the inherent value of human dignity entails, and what consequences this has for state obligations to secure human rights such as the right to life. What is more, there is a consequence to the elusiveness of dignity: a disparity between domestic and international legal systems in terms of how dignity is understood and applied, leading to a general fragmentation of human rights protections.

For example, in the UK even at the national level the concept of human dignity is approached differently. Webster highlights “legislative examples of dignity being referred to in several recent Acts of the Scottish parliament,”[9] such as the proposed Bill of Rights geared towards a review of the Human Rights Act. In England, meanwhile, this is not the case.

At the international level also there is disparity in how dignity is understood and applied. For example , O’Mahony, highlights different jurisdictional categorisations of dignity: in Germany the term is codified whereas in Poland dignity is not a right in itself, despite being recognised in the constitution.[10] Despite its pivotal role in human rights adjudication, the meaning of dignity is still highly contested. as Feldman argues, this means that every jurisdiction draws a cultural understanding of what amounts to dignity, which is then reflected into how dignity is applied.

Evidently a level of clarity as to the legal status of human dignity is necessary. As the European Commission for Democracy recorded, even in Germany, where dignity is a distinct constitutional right, “in all cases before the Constitutional Court in which questions of human dignity arose …the Court never depended on the qualification of human dignity as an individual right. ” [11] This raises the ongoing question of whether dignity should be understood as a fundamental principle.

In the case of Omega (2004), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) stated, “human dignity seems to appear in the national legal systems of the Member States primarily …. as a fundamental, evaluation or constitutional principle, rather than as an independent justiciable rule of law.” [12] This case illustrates that it is difficult to directly align the right to life with a right to live with dignity.

Right to Adequate Housing

The right to adequate housing is a material example of how the expansive interpretation of the right to life with dignity has been used practically as a form of indirect adjudication – a way of securing one right through another – and as a way of enforcing State obligations.

Traditionally, housing is recognised as an Economic, Social and Cultural Right (ESCR), subject to “progressive realization”, depending on the availability of state resources. As a result, despite the importance of the right to housing, it is difficult to measure state compliance and conceptualise the substance and the standards of states’ obligations. Assessing progressive realisation requires “a multiplicity of performance,” against the availability of resources in the context of a specific country.[13]

These difficulties in enforcing the right to housing have re-emphasised the reliance on indirect adjudication. The UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, argued that seeing the right to life and the right to housing as two unrelated sets of rights causes violation on a large-scale: They should, therefore, be read in conjunction. Several jurisdictions have adopted a similar understanding. For example, the Indian Supreme Court has departed from the traditional view that right to life only gives rise to a negative state obligation of non-interference. In Chameli Singh the court said that the right to life cannot be enjoyed without having access to food, water, and shelter, all covered by Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR). [14]

Similarly in the case of Ahmedabad, the court stated that states have a positive duty to “provide adequate facilities…and resources for settlement of life and erection of shelter over their heads to make the right to life meaningful”[15] in order to allow people to live with dignity. South Africa has taken a similar approach to India: the court has given effect to human dignity when interpreting human rights including the right to life. In the case of Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Another v Nigeria (2001), the court stated that the state must take action to ensure life with quality that includes access to necessities such as shelter: “everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.”[16]

All these cases illustrate two important points: first, the importance of dignity in widening the scope of the right to life beyond negative state obligations to facilitate the reinforcement of human dignity in a social context; and, second, that the right to life underpinned by dignity helps with indirect enforcement of ESCR, such as the right to housing.

Conclusion

It is evident that the right to life has moved beyond negative state obligations as reflected in several jurisdictions. Dignity has been pivotal in such developments. However, while the expansive interpretation of the right to life helps with securing ESCR, such as the rights to housing, there is little to no consensus on what amounts to living with dignity. Without a level of uniformity in the approach to dignity, any rights that are secured will be contingent on local interpretations and the concept of dignity, and its reality, will remain insecure.

References

[1] European Convention on Human Rights (entered into force on 3 September 1953) (ECHR) ,Article 2 .

[2] Bertie G Ramcharan , The Right to Life in International Law (BRILL 1985).

[3] Human Rights Committee, General Comment No 36: the Right to Life, CCPR/C/GC/36 (3 September 2019) para 3.

[4] Sandra Fredman, ‘The Right to Housing’ in Sandra Fredman (ed) Comparative Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press 2018) 265–304.

[5] Case of the “Street Children” (Villagran-Morales et al.) v. Guatemala, Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACrtHR) (1999) para 144.

[6] Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, UN General Assembly, ‘Adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living’ UN Doc A /71/310, 8 August 2016.

[7] Sandra Fredman, ‘The Right to Housing’ in Sandra Fredman (ed) Comparative Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press 2018) 265–304.

[8] Christopher McCrudden, ‘Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights’ (2008) EJIL 655

[9] Elaine Webster, ‘The Underpinning Concept of ‘Human Dignity’ (2020) Academic Advisory Panel to the National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership The Underpinning Concept of Human Dignity< https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/77785/1/Webster_AAP_2021_The_Underpinning_Concept_of_Human.pdf> accessed 21 September 2024

[10] Conor O’Mahony ‘There Is No Such Thing as a Right to Dignity’ (2012) 10 International Journal of Constitutional Law 551.

[11] European Commission for Democracy Through Law (VENICE COMMISSION):‘The principle of respect for human dignity’ ( Montpellier, 2-6 July 1998) <https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-STD(1998)026-e> accessed 28 September 2024

[12] Omega Spielhallen- und Automatenaufstellungs-GmbH v Oberbürgermeisterin der Bundesstadt Bonn (2004) C-36/02

[13] Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General Comment No 3: The Nature of States Parties’ Obligations (Art. 2, Para. 1, of the Covenant) 5th sess, UN Doc E/1991/23 (14 December 1990)

[14] Chameli Singh and Others v State of UP and Another (1996) 2 SCC 54 (Indian Supreme Court) para [8].

[15] Ahmedabad Mun. Corp. v. Nawab Khan Gulab Khan, (1996) Supp. 7 S.C.R. 548 (India), Para 13

[16] Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Another v Nigeria (2001) AHRLR 60 (ACHPR 2001) 44 (African Commission of Human and People’s Rights).