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Human dignity is a central value in all legal traditions. It also plays an essential role in the universal and regional protection of human rights. This paper recovers Kantian classic treatment of dignity and offers a contemporary reading that will help us to deal with current problems. The jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights uses the idea of human dignity to justify many of its decisions. The Latin American democracies, in spite of some fragilities inherited from their recent turbulent history, show strength and importance of dignity for guarantee of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new legislation and jurisprudence appeared in the period 2007-2013 on the right of association have allowed reconfigure this fundamental right and define its roles in the Spanish constitutional system. On the basis of the dignity and the free development of the personality, this paper analyzes the status of the right of association and its ten roles since the political transition to today: it role in the constitutional value system, in the jurisprudential basis of the rights of individuals, the right of association as common regulatory of other rights (particularly, political parties, trade unions and foundations), the right of association and its instrumental function for other rights, the autonomic laws of association, and its roles in the European integration and in the institutional representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]