When Ambivalent Principles Prevail: Leads for Explaining Western Legal Orders' Infatuation with the Human Dignity Principle

EUI Working Paper LAW No. 2007/37

24 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2008

Date Written: December 2007

Abstract

This paper originates in the statement of the human dignity principle's (HDP) growing importance in many legal orders. It first examines whether many legal orders' interest for the HDP may be linked to its intrinsic (symbolic/axiological) or extrinsic (usefulness in terms of litigation) qualities. Since the conclusions of this examination do not prove totally convincing - or at least not to the degree that one would expect for such a foundational principle as the HDP, - the argument looks in another direction: that of scholarly promotion. Indeed, a research conducted on French material provides with firm bases for suggesting that one of the striving forces of the recent legal infatuation with the HDP has to do with the fact that it has been seized by critical trends of legal scholarship as a favorable occasion for promoting the resurgence of theoretically naturalist representations of law.

Keywords: human dignity, naturalist theories of law, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Suggested Citation

Hennette-Vauchez, Stéphanie, When Ambivalent Principles Prevail: Leads for Explaining Western Legal Orders' Infatuation with the Human Dignity Principle (December 2007). EUI Working Paper LAW No. 2007/37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1093274 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1093274

Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez (Contact Author)

EUI / Robert Schuman Center ( email )

Villa La Fonte, via delle Fontanelle 18
50016 San Domenico di Fiesole
Florence, Florence 50014
Italy

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