Memorandum for the Petitioners | 89 8.46. In interpreting the legal responsibilities of respondent Carbon Majors, the Honorable Commission should keep a dignity lens. Focusing on human dignity would allow the Honorable Commission to see the interdependence, interrelatedness, and indivisibility of all human rights, which is how people experience them in everyday life. As explained by expert resource person” to the Honorable Commission, Professor Erin Daly of the Delaware Law School: More nearly than any other human or legal right, dignity expresses the human experience as humans experience it. People don’t think in terms of what rights have been violated. But they know when their dignity has been violated, they know when a company produces conditions that makes them feel less than human, or when a government lets that happen. By focusing on what matters most to people, which is being treated as a person of worth, the law of dignity reminds us of what is really at stake>® (Emphasis supplied) 8.47. As a legal right, the concept of human dignity means every person has equal worth. The first element of the right to dignity is that each person has value, that a person’s humanity has inherent worth, and that his or her life matters. The second element is that each person’s worth is equal worth to every other person’s, else’ s.784 8.48. and no one’s life is more important than anyone “Each person’s right to agency, to self-development, to choose one’s life course is the same as every other’s. Despite our differences, in our humanity, we are all equal.”*®° The right to dignity, when applied to individuals and groups, recognizes people’s intrinsic worth. As Professor Daly stresses, “human dignity is what gives people the right to have rights.’?%6 8.49. The right to dignity is not only relevant to the decisions people make, but also to the quality of people’s lives. The right to dignity has also been used to protect the irreducible minimum of the human condition. In addition, dignity defines who we are as individuals and our relationship with the natural environment. As the Supreme Court of Nepal stated: “Injot only that, it cannot be imagined to live with dignity in a polluted environment rather it may create an adverse situation even exposing human life to 382 An expert invited by the Honorable Commission to shed light on a particular relevant topic 383 Daly, E., supra note 379, p. 157. 384 dp. 155. 385 Ibid. *6 Daly, E. and May, J. (September 2016), “Bridging Constitutional Dignity and Environmental Rights Jurisprudence,” Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 7 No. 2, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2016.02.02 (last accessed 12 September 2019).