The Federal Constitution requires "account to be taken of the dignity of living beings when handling animals, plants and other organisms". The ECNH's key tasks include putting this concept into concrete terms.

With regard to animals, it means consistently taking into consideration the interests of animals when weighing them up against human interests: we must not, without justification, cause them suffering, pain, harm or fear. The Animal Protection Act already lays down these limitations to our treatment of animals.

Protecting the dignity of living beings, however, goes further: animals should also be protected from unjustified interventions on their appearance, from humiliation and from being disproportionately instrumentalised. The ECNH has also published a report on the consequences the constitutional definition of the dignity of living beings will have for our treatment of plants.

As part of the legislative process, the ECNH has issued several statements on the term "dignity of living beings" alone, including:

Concerning treatment of animals, the ECNH, together with the Federal Committee on Animal Experiments (SCAE) has published a booklet on Würde der Kreatur in the Animal Protection Act and another on research using primates:

"Terminator technology" is a genetic modification of plants so that a sown seed germinates normally, but the developing plant then produces seeds that are unable to germinate. What impacts does this technology have on agriculture? Does this affect the Würde der Kreatur in plants? And what precisely constitutes the dignity of a plant?

The ECNH commissioned an external expert's report as a basis for the internal discussion of the Würde der Kreatur in plants; it has been published in the series "Beiträge zur Ethik und Biotechnologie". The ECNH is preparing its report. 

Die Pflanze. Moderne Konzepte der Biologie. 2007 (Plants: modern biological concepts) in German, 2007

In the revised (updated) Federal Constitution of 1999, "Würde der Kreatur" was translated into French as "intégrité des organismes vivants", which the ECNH considers to be incorrect.