UNITED NATIONS: The British government may have failed to comply with its international human rights obligations over the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 79 people and left hundreds homeless, in June last year, the United Nations’ housing investigator told a UK newspaper on Friday.

Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, told The Guardian she was concerned that international human rights standards on housing safety may have been breached and could have been a factor behind the tragedy.

She was concerned that residents had told her they were excluded from decisions about housing safety issues before the fire and had not been engaged “in a meaningful way” by the authorities about their views and needs in its aftermath.

Farha, a Canadian lawyer and the UN’s unpaid housing investigator since 2014, was in London this week on an informal visit to meet Grenfell survivors and local residents at the invitation of human rights law academics and activists.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2018