Human Dignity and the Right to Life in German Law

Kai Moller has posted a fascinating new paper, The Right to Life Between Absolute and Proportional Protection.  Of particular interest (to me, anyway) was the discussion of Germany's post-9/11 law authorizing the government to shoot down an airplane likely to be used as a terrorist weapon.  The law was struck down in court as a violation of human dignity as guaranteed by Article 1(1) of the Basic Law.  Moller explains:

In German legal terminology, there is a distinction between 'inviolable' and 'untouchable,' the former meaning that the state may sometimes interfere with the object of the right, provided that it comes up with a legitimate justification, and the latter meaning that any interference will automatically amount to a violation of the right.  Human dignity, as the 'superior' value of the Basic law, is 'untouchable' . . . . The Court held that [the Aviation Security Act] violated both human dignity and the right to life in so far as it permitted the shooting down of aircrafts in situations where there were innocent persons on board.

The trick, of course, is defining "human dignity," and not surprisingly, given the implications, it has been defined narrowly (though still vaguely) in roughly Kantian terms.  An interesting read.