Studies on Life and Human Dignity

Co-Chairs: Carol S. Steiker (Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law, Harvard Law School) and José María Puyol Montero (Prof. of History of Law and Institutions, Universidad Complutense de Madrid).

In the last few centuries, society has presented an undeniable progress on all fronts of life, such as science, economics, commerce and law. However, sometimes this progress does not reflect a corresponding respect for human beings and their inherent dignity. Scientific advances and modern organizations have frequently brought about new forms of human exploitation, slavery, discriminations, attacks against the human person and its normal development and other kinds of human rights violations. Every human life has dignity and deserves a chance, no matter the state of the individual in question: old, young, sick, disabled, in the womb, or even someone convicted of a serious crime. For this reason we deem it necessary to create an academic forum for the study of human life and its inherent dignity, where specialists of different branches of science come together to discuss and propose their own ideas in an internationally fruitful environment.

This study group pursues two purposes:

1) To be a reflection and debate forum on the principles and values inherent to the dignity of a human being, from its natural beginning to its natural end.

2) To study and to create an environment of academic discussion on the threats and dangers to human dignity found in politics, law, sciences and the economy. And to seek and to find solutions that could be useful in giving relevance to and respect for every human being.