CYIL 2015

PAVEL BUREŠ CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ when examining the relative issues of surrogacy, medically-assisted procreation and the status of the embryo, to tackle this question. We argue that the concept of human dignity has to been perceived in its entirety (complexity), as a complex of individual and collective human dignity and as being an essential element of the humanness of humanity. Human rights protection should thus aim at this, looking for humanness in every situation. An important issue of this over-all concept of human dignity is so individual liberty. This individual liberty when striking against a State’s power, cannot be put on a “totalitarian” pedestal but is able to contribute to the humanness of society. Even though, the role of the European Court of human rights is primarily to protect those human rights contained in the European Convention and its additional Protocols, its non-jurisdictional role consists also in interpreting and “evolving” these rights in the whole system of the protection of human being and human dignity. The Court should have a clear concept of human dignity and should converge towards it with every judgment it makes. We have shown, however, that this convergence of the Court towards the concept of dignity is rather an exception. Having examined three specific issues relating to reproductive rights – surrogacy, the status of embryos and medically-assisted procreation, we concluded that the Court remains within the approach of a (strict) opposition between individual liberty and the State’s interference (State’s power). By promoting this individualistic approach the Court is softly diverging from the over-all concept of human dignity. This directional heading of the Court, if it remains, will sooner or later cause a sort of relativeness of human dignity, and thus the concept of human dignity will lose its main characteristics, which are universality and uniqueness.

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