Direito em Movimento - Volume 19 - Número 1 - 1º semestre - 2021

99 Direito em Movimento, Rio de Janeiro, v. 19 - n. 1, p. 81-107, 1º sem. 2021 ARTIGOS that impede agricultural output or force migration and community displa- cement.Thus, dignity rights reflect that human suffering is experienced not so much as violations of abstract rights such as that to due process, equal protection, liberty, or property but as a violation of the principle that all human beings have equal worth. 6 CONCLUSION The global surge in juridical attention to human dignity rights has taught us important lessons about what it means to be human in the 21st century, (DALY) all of which has implications for our understanding of the SDGs. We learn that human beings – perhaps by virtue of their ‘cons- cience and reason’ – have the capacity, and the need, to have agency over their own lives. As the SDGs recognize, poverty, environmental degrada- tion, and other stressors impede the ability of billions of people around the world to effectively control the course of their own lives. Another lesson is that equality of dignity must be taken seriously: no one has the right to control or limit the exercise of another person’s dignity. Relatedly, equality is not served when some fraction of the human population has their dignity realized while others do not. Sustainable practices are necessary to protect human dignity and the full achievement of human dignity for all will ensure that development will proceed sustainably.Thus, the concerns of the SDGs – poverty, hunger and lack of education, equality and access to justice – can be affronts to dignity. The dignity implications of environmental degradation are especially tren- chant, including climate change and the lack of access to potable water, clean air, and safe soils. At the same time, peaceful and inclusive societies based on human dignity will conduce to sustainable development. This paper shows that sustainability can be better advanced if we un- derstand the goal to be to advance and protect human dignity. The SDGs provide a useful framework for addressing global environmental challen- ges and do so by respecting and advancing human dignity. Dignity is the thread that runs through the SDGs, weaving them together into a coherent