Th is open access book asks, who is a vulnerable person in human rights law?It assesses the treatment of vulnerability by the European Court of Human Rights, an area that has been surprisingly underexplored by European human rights law to date. It explores legal-philosophical understandings of the topic, providing a theoretical framework that can be used when examining the question. Not confi ning itself to the abstract, however, it provides a bridge from the theoretical to the practical by undertaking a comprehensive examination of the Court's approach under Article 3 ECHR. It also pays particular attention to the concept of human dignity.Well written and compellingly argued, this is an important new book for all scholars of European human rights. Volume 106 in the Series Modern Studies in European Law Modern Studies in European LawRecent titles in this series:Citizenship, Crime and Community in the European UnionStephen Coutts whom I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. First and foremost, I am immensely grateful to Helen Keller, who supervised my doctoral research at the University of Zurich with tremendous brilliance, insight, wisdom and kindness. I am also grateful to my co-supervisor, Daniel Moeckli, who read the manuscript with a critical eye and whose feedback made this a better book. Th anks also go to Cedric Marti and Lea Raible, for fruitful discussions and for showing me the ropes at the RWI.From Zurich, I went to the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University, where I spent time as a visiting scholar thanks to the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Janggen-P ö hn Foundation. In Ghent, I joined ' the Strasbourg Club ' and the wonderful group of colleagues so inspiringly led by Eva Brems,

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Human rights law is increasingly being mobilized to litigate against the effects of anthropogenic climate change. This now includes proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights, which is currently considering its first five climate cases. The present article contends that an examination of climate change as a human rights issue by the Strasbourg Court, although requiring transformations of existing case law, is not only possible but also normatively desirable. It does so while examining two interlinked topics that could prove crucial to this type of case. The first is the assessment of risk – that is, the ability of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to capture impending harms through the doctrine of positive obligations. Second, the article frames climate claims as a matter for Article 3 of the ECHR (the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment). This right has gone largely ignored in the relevant scholarship and the Court’s environmental cases to date. The resulting discussion of positive climatic obligations is interlinked with a discussion of climate-related vulnerabilities, which could potentially shape state obligations and lower the procedural and substantive hurdles that imperil the success of climate cases before the Court.

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