Ensuring Human Safety as a Universal Duty of the State after Kotilainen and others v. Finland

In its judgment of 17 September 2020 in the case of Kotilainen and others v. Finland, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that Finland had violated the right to life under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by failing to take more action to prevent a mass murder. The judgment in hardly brings new obligations but serves as a reminder that human rights are to be realized first and foremost on the local level, something requiring an active state. Taking positive measures to protect human life against threats of a specific or general nature is the duty of the state and all its organs on the national, regional and local levels. None of these findings should be surprising as they are entirely consistent with the earlier case law of the European Court of Human Rights.