Positive Obligations Under the European Convention on Human Rights

It is beyond question that States have positive obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to prevent and address harm and risks of harm. However, given the difficulties of determining and delimiting the role of the State, the conditions under which positive obligations may apply can be unclear. The search for balance between intrusion and restraint by the State-between protection and freedom from interference-further complicates the question of state responsibility for breach of positive obligations. Vladislava Stoyanova directly addresses these challenges in Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. By systematising the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the book provides key insights into the elements crucial for ascertaining state responsibility for omissions - state knowledge, causation, and reasonableness. It outlines different kinds of positive human rights obligations and identifies the circumstances under which they can be breached. Stoyanova reflects upon what is at stake for political communities when the triggering, content, and scope of positive obligations has been determined. She offers serious evaluation of the dangers of ECHR obligations whose scope might be too expansive or intrusive, as well as the conceptual hurdles of applying positive human rights obligations extraterritorially. The definitive resource on ECHR positive obligations, this book is essential reading for academics, legal practitioners, and policymakers working across the diverse fields in which positive human rights obligations may apply. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Vladislava Stoyanova is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University, Sweden. She is the director of the migration law courses and the course in European fundamental rights law at her faculty. Dr. Stoyanova is the holder of the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (2019-2024) awarded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. As a Wallenberg Fellow, she leads the project 'The Borders within: the Multifaceted Legal Landscape of Migrant Integration in Europe.' Her research interests include public international law, human rights law, migration law and EU law.

- Introduction - 1: Deconstructing Positive Obligation - 2: State Knowledge - 3: Causation - 4: Reasonableness - 5: Competing Obligations - 6: Procedural Positive Obligation to Investigate - 7: Substantive Positive Obligations - 8: Extraterritorial Positive Obligations - Conclusion