This Article explores how the idea of human dignity has developed in Arab constitutionalism through the decades and reflects on its meaning and implications in the framework of the new constitutional texts, given the concept’s prominence in the post-Arab Spring context.

First, the Article sheds light on how Arab legal culture understands dignity, exploring both its religious and secular roots in the 1926 Lebanese Constitution, which pioneered the use of dignity by using the concept to command respect toward religions. Then, this Article explores the success of the idea of dignity at the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when the Lebanese scholar Charles Malik played a leading role in emphasizing dignity throughout the text and universalizing it to encompass all human beings. Next, the Article presents how the Arab states have used the concept and shows that their constitutions have incorporated and expounded on the idea of human dignity progressively, with the post-Arab Spring constitutional texts reinforcing its use once more. Finally, this Work offers some brief observations about how the use of dignity in Arab constitutionalism parallels the development of the same concept in Western legal culture, which has blended secular thinking with religious thinking.

Notwithstanding its widespread adoption, the meaning and implications of the constitutionalization of dignity in Arab countries remain uncertain; its fate will largely depend on how Arab legal culture will balance human rights with Islamic rules. This is not, however, a specific feature of Arab constitutionalism: uncertainties surround the global discourse on dignity.