Fashioning the self: Arguing for a right to dress under the freedom of expression in international human rights law

We intuitively recognize that the way we dress is an important part of who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we want to be seen by others. However, despite being constitutive of individual and collective dignity and freedom, the right to choose what we wear—what is termed as the “right to dress”—is not recognized as a human right. Currently, only certain dressing choices are protected under other rights, and there is no right to dress per se. In this article, we argue that dressing is a form of self-expression and hence, a “right to dress” can and should be protected under Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression. We show that such a right serves both theoretical and practical purposes: First, it fills a normative and legal gap in international human rights law; second, it widens the ambit of protection to cover all dressing choices; and, finally, it protects those choices without essentializing them. Conceptualizing a right to dress also presents a novel way of addressing long-standing human rights issues, such as that of the Islamic veil, around which legal and political debates have currently solidified into an impasse.