Human Dignity and Law
Legal and Philosophical Investigations

This book argues that human dignity and law stand in a privileged relationship with one another. Law must be understood as limited by the demands made by human dignity. Conversely, human dignity cannot be properly understood without clarifying its interaction with legal institutions and legal practices. This is not, then, a survey of the uses of human dignity in law; it is a rethinking of human dignity in relation to our principles of social governance. The result is a revisionist account of human dignity and law, one focused less on the use of human dignity in our regulations and more on its constitutive implications for the governance of the public realm.

The first part conducts a wide-ranging moral, legal and political analysis of the nature and functions of human dignity. The second part applies that analysis to three fields of legal regulation: international law, transnational law, and domestic public law.

The book will appeal to scholars in both philosophy and law. It will also be of interest to political theorists, particularly those working within the liberal tradition or those concerned with institutional design.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Outline

Part I

Chapter 1 Human Dignity and Law

Chapter 2 Human Dignity as Status

Chapter 3 Human Dignity, Justice, and Institutions

Part II

Chapter 4 International Law

Chapter 5 Transnational Law

Chapter 6 Public Law

Dr Stephen Riley is a lecturer in the Law School of the University of Leicester, UK. He has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Utrecht University.