Vladislava Stoyanova

This chapter responds to the following question: what substantive positive obligations did the Court formulate in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz under Article 8 ECHR that can actually guide the future conduct of States? To frame it even more specifically, what is the content of these positive obligations? More precisely, this content is clarified through the lens of the standard of causation. Causation is crucial because positive obligations in human rights law are grounded in the idea that, had the State acted (i.e., not failed/omitted to act), the fundamental interests protected by human rights law would have been better protected. In this sense, the causal inquiry is actually an inquiry about the interpretation of the content of the positive obligations. In other words, causation is a tool for specifying the content of these obligations.