Interview With Erin Daly
Law Professor / Dignity Rights Advocate
Where are you from, and why there?
I’m originally from California but I lived in France as a child. The rest of my life I’ve spent in different parts of the United States, though I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel abroad quite a bit. Growing up as an ex-pat and continuing to travel throughout my life has given me a comparative perspective on the world which has defined my professional life as well. Right now, as I write this, I’m in Bhutan, where I’m working with law students in the Human Dignity Clinic at the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law.
Which issue(s) do you work on/care about, and why?
My focus over the last 15 years has been on dignity rights – the rights that all people have to protect their inherent worth.
I think this is a tremendously profound and powerful twin set of ideas – that just by virtue of being born a member of the human family, we all have equal and inherent worth, and that the law should protect that.
Both parts of this – which we really owe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are absolutely radical. To say that every human being’s life is equally worthy is to reject the whole of human history that valued some human lives more than others: all caste systems from slavery to misogyny, all forms of discrimination and oppression, become impossible if we really believe in the equal dignity of all people. Even war and everything that goes along with it become indefensible if we have “faith” in the inherent dignity of every person.
And then the UDHR takes this one critical step further by affirming that people have a fundamental human right to have their dignity respected and protected. This is such a profound idea that most human rights instruments and the constitutions of most countries on earth have jumped on the dignity bandwagon to cement the legal obligation to respect the inherent worth of every person.
I think we’re living in a very interesting time. Yes, atrocities against human beings keep happening, but now they are globally scorned precisely because attacks on human dignity have become morally and legally indefensible. This might be the real clash of civilizations – between those who still adhere to caste and human hierarchies and those who believe that every human being everywhere has a legal right to live their most fulfilling life.
How did you get involved?
In preparing to teach a course on comparative constitutional law, I happened upon a case from the Indian Supreme Court about “pavement dwellers” – that is, people who had no other home than on the sidewalks of Mumbai. The case was not a complete win for the petitioners, but I was struck by the Court’s concern for their rights and its respect for their “dignity as persons.” The Court seemed to evince a certain compassion for them precisely because of their vulnerability that we don’t often see in US Supreme Court decisions. So I started looking for other cases in India or elsewhere in which a court took action to ensure that people’s dignity was respected. Indeed, I found many cases involving dignity rights not only to housing but to the full panoply of civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and even environmental rights. I was struck by the diversity of these cases – from different parts of the world and different legal and cultural traditions – but all saying essentially the same thing about the law’s essential obligation to protect each person’s humanity. Trying to understand how, and why, courts were making the effort to care about the inherent dignity of vulnerable people became my passion. Or maybe my obsession.
What’s the biggest challenge for the issue(s) today?
Some people think dignity can refer to any human interest and that it means too much to be legally useful, while others think it’s empty and doesn’t mean enough. I’m struck by the number of judges who think it’s just right.
Who are your most frequent allies? Any surprises?
Constitutional judges and children.
Judge Bernice Donald was the first US judge I’ve known to think seriously about the role that dignity plays in our law and in our legal system. She saw that the commitment to respecting and promoting human dignity lies at the root of why judges and lawyers do what they do. She brought that insight to the American Bar Association (ABA) Center for Human Rights and eventually to the whole ABA. What a magnificent accomplishment: to get the American legal community to recognize that human dignity is foundational to a just rule of law, to encourage American lawyers – who individually and collectively have so much power to do good in the world – to stand up for human dignity.
Many judges around the world are taking dignity seriously too. There are thousands of cases from all over the globe that limit government power in order to protect or promote human dignity, particularly where people are vulnerable. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to get to know some of them. For instance, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, on the Supreme Court of Pakistan, is using the idea of dignity rights to modernize, liberalize, and democratize Pakistan. He calls it the ”jewel in the crown” of the fundamental rights, saying it “hovers over our laws like a guardian angel.” Isn’t that wonderful language?! Dignity brings out the inner poet in many jurists. But it’s poetry with real impact: there are countless examples where judges have used dignity to help transform the societies in which they work.
It's not just lawyers and judges who understand the power of dignity. Everyone does, intuitively. I’ve asked little kids in Haiti, struggling with famine and violence on a daily basis, what dignity means, and they’ll explain it just like the most learned justices. They’ll explain that it means that each person matters, that each person is worthy of respect. They know that when an adult talks to them kindly, they’re being treated with dignity, and they know it violates their dignity when the world ignores them and allows them to suffer. Kids understand that, without having to be taught or told.
What drives you?
I think that dignity is the shortest line from the human heart to the law. It’s what makes people hurt when there’s an injustice and it’s what drives people to assert their rights when they know they deserve better. I want to encourage people to assert their rights to dignity protection. I want to help shape the law so that it does the one essential thing that law should do: help people live better, more fulfilled lives. It’s good for people, and it makes democracy stronger.
What do you want your career/advocacy to stand for?
Helping people use the power of their own dignity to demand better lives for themselves and others and helping to bend the arc of the law toward human dignity.