On the International Legal Aspects of Human Dignity
Human dignity is a value of great antiquity. Dignity for the classical Roman conveyed the sense of the rank of some citizens of Roman society. Later, in the period of the Renaissance, religious writings expanded the idea of human dignity to a quality enjoyed by all, not simply an elite. The Renaissance fortified the conception of the individual's capacity, through God, to transform themselves. 
 
The second great renaissance in the life of human dignity occurred at the end of World War II. The appalling loss of civilian life during this conflict and the gruesome revelations of the treatment of minorities, most notably the evil treatment of European Jews, revived discussion of human dignity. Human dignity may have waxed and waned in legal and philosophical attention after this time. In the 1970s, one writer suggested that discussion of human dignity 'seems to have suffered the fate of notions such as virtue and honour, by simply fading into the past'. However, human dignity has enjoyed yet another renaissance over the past decades, in debates about dying with dignity and the human cloning debates of the modem Genome Era.
Normative Versus Taxonomic Humanity: Varieties of Human Dignity in the Western Tradition
Today we see human dignity and human rights as inextricably linked. As the International Human Rights Covenants put it, “these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.” This article highlights the recent and radical nature of this connection by offering an episodic overview of the history of (human) dignity in the Western tradition. It is now widely accepted that the idea of human rights—equal and inalienable rights held by every human being that can be exercised against the state and society—first appeared in the modern Western world. I argue that much the same is true of human dignity, understood as an inherent, morally defining feature of homo sapiens that demands social respect. For nearly all of Western history, dignity and humanity functioned as particularistic principles of hierarchy rather than universal principles of equality. I also argue that rather than human dignity providing a prior moral foundation for human rights, ideas and practices of human rights and human dignity mutually constructed each other as the class of “taxonomic humans” (members of the species homo sapiens) gradually came to be seen as co-extensive with those “normative humans” that had an inherent dignity that demands social recognition and respect.
The business of human embryonic stem cell research and an international analysis of relevant laws.
Few sciences have held out such therapeutic promise and correspondingly stirred so much controversy in countries throughout the world as the developing science surrounding human embryonic stem cells. Since the first reported development of several lines of human embryonic stem cells in 1988, many governments around the world have attempted to address the thorny ethical issues raised by human embryonic stem cell research by the passage of laws. In some cases these laws have directly regulated governmental funding of the science; in other cases they have created a legal environment that has either encouraged or discouraged both governmental and private funding of the science. This article first differentiates human embryonic stem cells from other types of stem cells and frames the ethical controversy surrounding human embryonic stem cell research, then surveys laws governing human embryonic stem cell research in various scientifically advanced countries located throughout the Pacific Rim, Europe and North America and explains the impact these laws have had on governmental and private funding of human embryonic stem cell research.