Fès Declaration on Human Dignity

A landmark text reaffirming the cultural roots of human dignity, the universality of humanisms, and the centrality of these principles in multilateral governance.

What is the Fès Declaration?

The "Fès Declaration on Human Dignity and Universal Humanism" is a landmark text drafted by a high-level expert, academic and diplomatic committee. It reaffirms the cultural roots of human dignity, the universality of humanisms, and the centrality of these principles in multilateral governance.

Adopted at the closing of the Fès Summit, it is intended to grow into a lasting movement towards a future Universal Declaration on Human Dignity.

The Woman Behind the History - Hakima El Haite

President's Message

There are moments in a life of commitment when one understands that the battles we fight, however necessary, are not sufficient on their own. For years, I carried the cause of the climate on the most demanding stages in the world- in Paris at COP21, in Marrakech at COP22- convinced that the survival of our planet depended on the ability of nations to reach agreement. But through those negotiations, one truth became clear to me: the crises facing humanity were not only environmental. At their root, they were crises of dignity.

It is from this deep conviction that KARAMAH was born. Not as yet another summit on rights or governance, but as an unprecedented space- perhaps the first of its kind- where human dignity ceases to be an abstract principle and becomes the true foundation of a new diplomacy. A diplomacy that does not merely seek to manage conflicts, but to dry up their very sources.

Fès was not chosen by chance. This ancient city, which for centuries brought together knowledge, traditions and civilizations, carries within it something that international conference halls have often lost: the living memory of dialogue. To gather the world in Fès is to remind ourselves that coexistence is not a utopia- it is a legacy that we have a responsibility to pass on.

This first KARAMAH Summit brings together decision-makers, intellectuals, diplomats and artists from five continents- not to sign more agreements, but to build something lasting: a culture of dignity. The Fès Declaration that we will adopt together will not be a text for the occasion. It will be calligraphed, deposited at the University of Al Quaraouiyine- the oldest in the world- and brought to the United Nations as the testimony of a humanity that refuses to resign itself to fragmentation.

I want to thank each and every one of you for making the journey to Fès, for believing that this gathering was necessary. Your presence is already a political act. It says that dignity is non-negotiable, that it precedes all rights and underpins all peace. It is in this spirit, with this demand and this hope, that I open this first Fès Summit on Human Dignity.

"Dignity is the source of peace."

Fès Declaration Committee

Message from the Co-PresidentRoger-Philippe Bertozzi

The fundamental principle of the dignity of the human person, and the universal dimension of humanism, are more necessary than ever in the face of global challenges, inequalities, and existential threats- but also to make humanity's collective intelligence a source of shared prosperity, responsible and inclusive progress, cultural richness, and the joy of living. Yes, joy is a human right!

"Joy is a human right!"

Biography

Philosopher and writer, Roger Bertozzi has 40 years of experience in international relations and negotiations, notably with the European Union, the Middle East and multilateral organisations. An art lover, he has also advised cultural institutions. In 2013, he proposed the concept of Karamah Diplomacy, the diplomacy of dignity. In 2015, he launched an Appeal for a Universal Declaration on Human Dignity. In 2026, he co-chairs the drafting Committee of the Fès Declaration on Human Dignity and Universal Humanism.

Introduction by the Co-President

Dignity and Humanism, humanity's moral compass

The great paradox of today's world is that it responds to the interconnection of problems with the fragmentation of policies, and to the interdependence of societies with the retreat of multilateralism, the erosion of solidarities, and the divergence of diplomacies.

An international human community

The number, the scale, and the urgency of our collective challenges have at least the advantage of conveying an essential message: what is abstractly called the international system is in reality a true international human community.

The honor of civic and political engagement is to work so that this community may function fraternally, for it universally aspires to the values of dignity, freedom, security, justice, fulfillment, and responsibility toward future generations.

The citizens of the world aspire to a form of global governance conceived as the collective and collaborative management of common problems and common progress.

The aspiration to the Common Good

What are called universal values are the universality of needs and fundamental rights; they are the call, the fundamental thirst of human nature, our natural and universal aspiration to happiness, to harmonious coexistence, to spirituality, to love and be loved; to something far beyond and infinitely greater than the satisfaction of our needs.

Consciously or confusedly, individuals and peoples aspire to the Common Good, that is to say, the good of others conceived as our own good.

More than ever, this orientation toward the Common Good is expressed through a demand for decisions enjoying universal legitimacy in order both to resolve humanity's problems, to accelerate and amplify its advances and its progress, and to guarantee their ethical, beneficial, and peaceful character.

The fundamental principle of the dignity of the human person, and that which is universal in humanism, are more necessary than ever in the face of global challenges, inequalities, global existential threats, but also in order to make humanity's wonderful collective intelligence a source of shared prosperity, responsible and inclusive progress, cultural wealth, and joy in living.

Yes, joy is a human right!

The roots of dignity

The three religions of the Book have each placed human dignity at the center of their message. Judaism with the creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God. Christianity with the incarnation of God in man through Jesus. Islam through the dignity- karamah- conferred by Allah upon Adam and his descendants, that is to say upon all humanity without distinction, and through the sublime and cosmic image of the prostration of the angels before Adam.

Other religious and spiritual traditions have also given the human person a sacred character.

It is this eminent dignity of the human person that was exalted by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in his Oration on the Dignity of Man of 1486, a founding philosophical act of European humanism, which also affirmed the equal dignity of all cultures and all spiritual traditions.

It is this foundation that gave birth to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, liberal democracy, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and more broadly to the entire edifice of the expansion of rights and of the great multilateral texts from the aftermath of the Second World War down to the present day.

A principle invoked everywhere, never enshrined

In 1947, UNESCO conducted a study across the five continents at the request of the UN in preparation for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was made possible and strong because that preparatory work concluded that in all regions of the world, within human diversity and within cultural particularities, one encountered an aspiration to a life of dignity.

Today, the principle of the dignity of the human person is invoked in the preamble or in the first articles of all the major international Conventions and Declarations, as well as in the Constitutions of most of the States of the planet.

Thus, it is manifest that the notion of human dignity, and the universal humanism that underlies it, are at once the foundation of dialogue among civilizations and among cultures and religions or spiritual traditions, and the guiding principle of global governance oriented toward the Common Good of humanity.

To this day there is no multilateral text on human dignity.

It remains the case that this notion of human dignity, so rich and so fundamental, is insufficiently used as an intellectual, moral, and spiritual bridge between all human beings; and that although it is the basis of the principal multilateral texts, there is to this day no multilateral text on human dignity.

Why Fès

It is to remedy these shortcomings and to deploy the connecting, mobilizing, and virtuously transformational power of the notion of the dignity of the human person and of the aim of a universal humanism that the Fès Summit and its Declaration are proposed.

Our world in upheaval needs a multipolar multilateralism that helps it to reinvent itself, to join together the dignity of man and the dignity of the planet- for one cannot live a dignified life in a devastated environment- and to let itself be guided by a diplomacy of dignity, "Karamah Diplomacy."