disproportionate punishments are punishments passed or enforced without considering the criteria of proportionality, namely the criteria of harm done, the absolute or relative seriousness of crimes, the kind of committed crime and offender characteristics, the degree and kind of victim culpability. considering the penological aims, such as retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence and securing so...

Recent advances in the technology of creating chimeras have evoked controversy in policy debates. At centre of controversy is the fear that a substantial contribution of human cells or genes in crucial areas of the animal’s body may at some point render the animal more humanlike than any other animals we know today. Authors who have commented on or contributed to policy debates specify that chi...

despite the consensus of jurists (fokaha) in safe custody of property (haraz) as one of the punishable conditions when the theft happens, some jurists made an exception in bird case. it means that stealing the bird would not subject to punishment namely cut off the thief's hand, even if the bird was in safe custody.  many of  fokaha, however,  believe that if the bird is in safe custody, t...

‘Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect is the duty of all state authority.’ Thus begins the first article of the German constitution, the ‘Grundgesetz’. Many of the political debates of the last decades, from abortion to euthanasia, have been concerned with the interpretation of the concept of human dignity (‘Die Würde des Menschen’ – in a more literal translation: The dignity of ...

Qur’anic verses and hadiths certify that Allah has bestowed dignity upon mankind. Therefore, man essentially deserves respect. Islamic law has primarily made use of two ways to safeguard human dignity. First, there are prohibitions in Islamic law that safeguard man’s dignity. Second, the penal laws of Islam restrict punishments to those cases where they are absolutely necessary. In this article...

social engagement. This will not be simply a matter of income, although income is one way of measuring position in the hierarchy. Linking inequality in society with loss of dignity in individuals who are disadvantaged means that our set of social arrangements are crucial. By holding society responsible for human ills, including loss of dignity, are we not abrogating personal responsibility? The...

mergency department (ED) overcrowding is the subject of intense study to evaluate its causes and consequences. However, although implied, there is little mention of the threat that overcrowding poses to patient dignity. This threat is intuitively obvious to health care providers and patients in the ED, yet it is elusive to prove, as there is neither a universally accepted definition of dignity ...

References to human dignity are littered throughout modern human rights and bioethics instruments, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), to UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) and the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki (2008). Dignity is both the background value of these texts, and th...