In the current global political moment, it seems unfashionable – to say the least – to talk about concepts like dignity in policymaking, especially the making of foreign policy, and double that for anything involving national security. Contrary to conventional wisdom, though, Americans seem to disagree. According to recent polling, 94 percent of Americans believe that all people – just because they’re people – deserve to be treated with dignity. That kind of finding from a nationally representative sample of Americans is as close to unanimity as the U.S. population gets for almost anything these days. Future public policymaking could benefit greatly from refocusing on dignity, a concept so universally embraced. Nowhere is this more urgent than in global peace and security efforts to stop expanding wars and protect civilians.
Today, though, world leaders are increasingly focused on narrowly defined national interests and on projecting power. Some scoff at universal principles or values as soft, weak, or impractical in an era of intensifying geopolitical competition and resource scarcity. Elite institutions developing ideas for future foreign policy, like the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) new “Future of American Strategy” initiative, are couching the defense of international law and norms, collective security arrangements, or humanitarianism primarily in terms of national economic or security interests.
Yet, we should not be so quick to give up on dignity. As common ground becomes harder to find across different actors, interests, and alliances, dignity offers a practical way to refocus on something that seems universally understood. In an increasingly diffuse geopolitical power environment, it may offer one of the few ways to build public – and even political – consensus for new commitments to international peace and security or to craft more durable peace agreements that end wars. A range of actors from the Vatican to leading economists are increasingly highlighting the importance of dignity in navigating emerging global challenges, such as artificial intelligence (105 mentions of dignity in Pope Leo’s encyclical, 125 mentions in an essay from economist Gene Sperling) or the climate crisis. Accordingly, other leaders, too, should not shy away from dignity; they should show what might be possible by reasserting that everyone deserves it.
Dignity Matters…
Every major religion has a concept of human dignity; world leaders regularly speak of it; and it resonates across cultures, countries, and languages. Talk of the dignity of work or honoring a loved one’s dignity in dying rarely codes left/right, blue collar/white collar, devout/atheist, or Global North/South. Across traditions, human dignity is widely understood to be our inherent human value or worth.
This is more than just an abstract philosophical concept. The idea of dignity was top of mind when world leaders convened in the wake of World War II to design a new structure to advance peace and prevent future generations from the scourge of world wars. The result, the United Nations Charter, set out to reaffirm faith in “the dignity and worth of the human person.” Just a few years later, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was based on a recognition that “inherent dignity” is “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”
A “sense of dignity” is where the concept of inherent worth transforms into a lived experience: when we feel respected, valued, recognized, treated fairly, or able to exercise agency. When people feel their dignity is attacked and they are humiliated, it triggers a powerful emotional response in the brain, resulting in feelings of fear, anger, shame, and a desire for revenge. Think of the story and legacy of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia. In 2010, Bouazizi was sick and tired of repeated government harassment and abuse. When authorities confiscated his fruit cart, humiliating him in broad daylight while eliminating his only means to provide for his family, he set himself on fire. His action sparked the Arab Spring. Similarly, a major U.N. study a decade ago showed that degrading experiences with security forces (a.k.a. indignities) were the leading cause of young Africans joining violent extremist groups.
…But Dignity Is Increasingly Disregarded
Today, in conflicts from Palestine to Myanmar, world leaders are embracing rhetoric and actions toward adversaries and opponents that intrinsically rejects their human dignity. For example, Russia has spread racist and dehumanizing propaganda to justify expanded attacks in Ukraine. President Donald J. Trump has called Iranians “animals” and repeatedly threatened to “wipe out” Iran, including by bombing civilian infrastructure. Leaders in Ethiopia and Sudan have referred to those they are fighting as “weeds,” “cancer,” and “insects,” to be eliminated.
In these and other ongoing conflicts, rhetoric is linked to action: state and non-state armed actors alike are increasingly ignoring international humanitarian law (the laws of war) and conducting strikes against infrastructure and areas where large numbers of civilians live, work, and go to school. For its part, the U.S. Department of Defense recently eliminated programs on reducing civilian casualties. All the while, leaders seem oblivious to or unconcerned about the indignities these actions are imposing, which will inevitably fuel new cycles of grievance and violence for years to come.
Throughout history, those in power have often sacrificed the dignity of others in the name of economic and security interests. But its disregard today is designed to be intentional. To some, focusing on the human dignity of others is considered a weakness that misses the “reality” that the only kind of power that matters is hard power or dominance.
Dignity’s Importance for Future Peace and Security
Yet in this context, wars and their consequences continue to compound and the capacities and systems for managing them are collapsing in individual countries and globally. Many of us fear that we are currently headed toward a dangerous future where ‘might is right’ and those with power can do what they want without consequence, never mind the unrestrained violence, injustice, and degradation of human rights that such a world order unleashes. According to a recent poll commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, majorities of people around the world want their country to work with others on reducing conflicts and preventing wars.
Changing this current trajectory requires reconnecting the rules and institutions seeking to protect peace and security with the human beings they are meant to protect. A dignity focus illustrates what is at risk and at stake, on a basic human level, when norms weaken, ranging from international laws intended to limit the aggressive use of force to the use of deadly weapons and harm to civilians. Making the connections more explicit between dignity (and indignity), on the one hand, and peace and security on the other, might demonstrate that a universal grounding can guide collective problem-solving. People remain committed to leaders, movements, and institutions that they feel recognize their value (even if that feeling is disconnected from actual policy realities).
On a practical level, refocusing on dignity can make more visible what is prolonging today’s violent conflicts, and it can enhance efforts to promote peace. If dignity is experienced via recognition, agency, fairness, and respect, peacebuilding efforts can create conditions that enable people to better listen, cooperate, compromise, or repair relationships. Fostering a sense of dignity among aggrieved groups has been a key part of some of the most enduring peace agreements of recent decades. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland institutionalized a commitment to human dignity through the “parity of esteem”: formal recognition of the equal standing, identity, and worth of both communities. The concept of dignity was also woven into Colombia’s 2016 comprehensive peace agreement, particularly its emphasis on addressing the marginalization of women and minority groups.
More broadly, a dignity focus can help global leaders manage emerging challenges and threats facing humanity. On AI, for example, there is a growing recognition of the need to make values like dignity explicit in the design of systems and their “alignment,” which in AI parlance refers to ensuring that an AI system’s goals, actions, and internal motivations reliably match human intentions, preferences, and ethical values. That an AI tool responds kindly to a teen telling it about their depression is insufficient in the extreme if it also provides details on how to commit suicide. On climate disruption, as another example, focusing on how dignity changes through the experience of disaster and displacement could improve preparedness and adaptation — not only helping people survive, but helping them retain agency and respect, experience a fair response, and ultimately, rebuild their lives.
Restoring Dignity
At a time when nearly 7 in 10 people polled across 34 countries (in the above-referenced Rockefeller survey) believe conditions in the world have gotten “worse” over the last year, leaders and communities cannot afford to wait for the wreckage of world war proportions to renew an international focus on human dignity. Future policy leaders can take important steps now to ensure that plans and structures incorporate a focus on dignity for near-term as well as long-term foreign policy and international security. Those steps include:
- Engage ethical and religious voices as partners in advancing dignity. Ethical and religious traditions can provide important perspectives about the current trajectory of international affairs that rise above regular punditry. Building on Pope Leo’s leadership, three Catholic Cardinals in the United States released a statement earlier this year “charting a moral vision of American foreign policy” that used the term “human dignity” three times. Similarly, Protestant leaders of the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Methodist Council earlier this year cited “shared values of dignity and worth of each person” in lamenting the current wars and calling for renewed efforts to constrain violence and strengthen diplomacy and dialogue. These religious leaders represent institutions with vast numbers of followers, especially in the United States where two-thirds of adults identify with a religion. Their moral authority and perspectives on dignity offer a spiritual and popular alternative to the often intellectual and detached debates over when force is justified, how peace is built, and what principles should guide emerging technologies and the international order.
- Incorporate dignity into policy analysis. Alongside political and legal considerations, public institutions that work on security and conflict should increase focus on how new peace and security initiatives promote or undermine the dignity of those affected. There are increasingly rigorous ways to measure this, including in aid programs. At the University of Notre Dame (where one of us, Peter, is affiliated), researchers have been developing new ways to measure dignity within development programs, peace processes, and the design of artificial intelligence. Drawing on the work of conflict resolution expert Donna Hicks, another group of researchers developed and launched the Dignity Index and Dignity Barometer (which used the respected Hart Research group to ensure accurate methodology and a representative cross-section of Americans) to measure dignity within language and how people feel about relations with one another. Using these tools, policy analysts and advocates can and should help bring issues of dignity into more policy conversations.
- Make dignity a key criterion of what peace and security in foreign policy is supposed to support. If solving problems and resolving conflicts requires people to see something of themselves in one another, leaders, policymakers, and practitioners need to get better at noticing and creating the conditions for that to happen. What if, alongside efforts to pursue elite deals and agreements, diplomats and mediators also asked, does this approach enhance or abridge people’s sense of dignity? That could change what foreign policy programs support, from investing more in unofficial “Track II” dialogues of non-state actors to build trust and explore solutions and cultural diplomacy programs that help foster connections across countries, to accounting for how people feel about their own worth during a program intervention intended to build public confidence in an agreement and jumpstart post-war recovery, which could range from maternal care to municipal reconstruction. The aim in each case would be to help restore people’s trust in institutions to avoid recurring cycles of violence. “Dignity over division” could be a powerful theme for the incoming U.N. secretary-general, to the extent she or he focuses more on conflict mediation and peacemaking.
It is not naive to think that a commitment to dignity can once again be a centerpiece for peace and security. Dignity may be big enough, universal enough, and practical enough to do double duty: it might remind the public – and its leaders – why it is in our human interest to stem violence, and it may be a powerful tool to rebuild cooperation that creates the conditions for solving problems that no country or actor can solve alone.
Amid expanding and seemingly intractable wars around the world from Ukraine to Yemen to Iran, world leaders seem to be doubling down on military approaches that only escalate cycles of violence. Clearly, that is not working. By treating – and acknowledging – dignity as both an inherent right and an experience, international leaders may find new ways to halt surging conflict-related violence and meet the global challenges ahead collectively. That is the kind of bold leadership needed to forge peace and security. We all deserve it. And together, we must insist upon it.
