Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Positive Obligations

  • Sjoerd Lopik

A Criminal Law Response to Climate Change: Positive Obligations under the ECHR?

April 04, 2023

By Sjoerd Lopik The past decade has seen a significant rise in interest in climate obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). There is an almost unanimous opinion in literature that climate change can lead to far-reaching violations of human rights. Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, even deems […]

  • Merel Vrancken

Breaking the ‘circle of marginalisation’ through desegregation measures: X and Others v. Albania

July 01, 2022

By Merel Vrancken In the recent case of X and Others v. Albania on the segregation of Roma and Egyptian pupils in education, the ECtHR speaks up strongly against the wrongs of segregation, fifteen years after the Grand Chamber had first done so in the case of D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic. The […]

  • Guest Blogger

Victims of ‘vulnerability’: Balancing protection, privacy and participation of child victims in X and Others v. Bulgaria

April 26, 2021

By Prof. Dr. Ton Liefaard[*], Jessica Valentine (LL.M)[†] and Lisanne van Dijck[‡] ‘This is a sad case’ begins the joint partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion of Judge Spano and others in the case of X and others v. Bulgaria. The judgment, delivered by a Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) […]

  • Guest Blogger

An Endeavor Towards More Situational Positive Obligations Stemming from Article 2: Case of Kotilainen and others v. Finland

October 16, 2020

Elina Pekkarinen is a university instructor and PhD candidate in Tampere University. Her dissertation concerns the contextual interpretation of rights laid down in the European Convention Introduction On 17 September 2020, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgement in the case of Kotilainen and others v. Finland (application no.62439/12). The ECtHR found that […]

  • Guest Blogger

Positive Obligations in Crisis

April 07, 2020

Dr Natasa Mavronicola is Reader in Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. She has written extensively on the right to life and the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. She is co-editor of Lavrysen & Mavronicola (eds), Coercive Human Rights: Positive Duties to Mobilise […]