International Campaign for the Right to Identity and Human Dignity

Identity is a fundamental human right.

Under international human rights principles, every individual has the right to freely define and express their cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and social identity, without coercion, discrimination, or exclusion.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 1 and 2), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 27), and other relevant international instruments affirm human dignity, respect for identity diversity, and the prohibition of imposed identities. No state or political authority has the right to forcibly define, restrict, or deny an individual’s or a community’s identity.

This campaign is launched to defend the right to self-defined identity, to uphold human diversity, and to challenge structural identity-based discrimination. We affirm that identity is a human right and must never be used as a political tool for exclusion, marginalization, or control.

We call upon international institutions, human rights organizations, governments, and civil society to:

• Protect the right to identity and self-definition;

• Oppose all forms of forced, denied, or discriminatory identity practices;

• Uphold human dignity as a non-negotiable principle in all policies and actions.

My Identity Is My Right