Leilani Farha is a Canadian lawyer who is the Global Director of THE SHIFT, a housing initiative. Between June 2014 and April 2020, she was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing. [1] [2]
Leilani Farha is a Canadian lawyer who is the Global Director of THE SHIFT, a housing initiative. Between June 2014 and April 2020, she was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing. [1] [2]
Farha is legally trained [3] and an alumna of the University of Toronto, [4] and has been an Executive Director of the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) and Canada Without Poverty.
In her tenure as Special Rapporteur, she has focused on economic inequality and an absence of effective political representation for the poor as causes of homelessness or inadequate accommodation. Farha campaigns for the right to adequate housing for marginalized groups, she worked in Canada to implement United Nations resolutions that see homelessness as a violation of human rights. Farha has taken part in missions worldwide to examine the condition of housing rights and to develop policies to implement those rights. [5] [3] [6] [1] [7]
Leilani Farha told The Guardian about the Grenfell Tower fire. Farha fears tenants' human rights were breached because they were not sufficiently involved in the way the building was developed, notably safety issues, before the fire and are not sufficiently involved in the investigations after the fire. Farha stated, "I’m concerned when I have residents saying to me they feel they are not being heard and that they are not always being treated like human beings. Those are the fundamentals of human rights: voice, dignity, and participation in solutions to their own situations." Lack of safety over cladding used, over electrical circuits and access to the building for fire and rescue vehicles could have breached human rights to safe and secure housing, Farha stated. [8]
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Leilani Farha was a pioneer in launching THE SHIFT in 2019 as a new global movement to claim and realize the basic human right to housing; SHIFT encourages individuals and businesses to consider housing not exclusively as a place to invest excess capital, but to consider providing housing facilities as a place for people to live with dignity, raise families and participate more actively in the community. After leaving her position as UN Special Rapporteur, [9] she became the Global Director of The Shift organization. [10]
SHIFT pursues its goals with the partnership of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Cities Local Government. [11]
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on 16 December 1966 through GA. Resolution 2200A (XXI), and came into force on 3 January 1976. It commits its parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) to all individuals including those living in Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories. The rights include labour rights, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to an adequate standard of living. As of February 2024, the Covenant has 172 parties. A further four countries, including the United States, have signed but not ratified the Covenant.
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
The Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children works on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the exploitation of children around the world and make recommendations to governments on how to end such practices.
Economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Economic, social and cultural rights are recognised and protected in international and regional human rights instruments. Member states have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights and are expected to take "progressive action" towards their fulfilment.
The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individual's dietary needs. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. The right to food implies that governments only have an obligation to hand out enough free food to starving recipients to ensure subsistence, it does not imply a universal right to be fed. Also, if people are deprived of access to food for reasons beyond their control, for example, because they are in detention, in times of war or after natural disasters, the right requires the government to provide food directly.
Philip Geoffrey Alston is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. In human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades, including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, a position he held from August 2004 to July 2010, and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014-2020.
The right to housing is the economic, social and cultural right to adequate housing and shelter. It is recognized in some national constitutions and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The right to housing is regarded as a freestanding right in the International human rights law which was clearly in the 1991 General Comment on Adequate Housing by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The aspect of the right to housing under ICESCR include: availability of services, infrastructure, material and facilities; legal security of tenure; habitability; accessibility; affordability; location and cultural adequacy.
The Center for Economic and Social Rights is an international human rights NGO that aims to transform the dominant global economic system into one based on human rights standards that provides dignity for all people and protects the planet.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio is a Dutch jurist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. She served as Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 2002 and retired from the post in 2012 and was succeeded by Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni.
Frank La Rue is a Guatemalan labor and human rights law expert and served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, from August 2008 to August 2014. Along with American human rights attorneys Anna Gallagher and Wallie Mason, Mr. La Rue is the founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights (CALDH) and has been involved in the promotion of human rights for over 25 years. He was nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize by Mairead Corrigan, Northern Irish peace activist and 1976 laureate. Mr La Rue was previously the executive director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Europe. He has also served as Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO.
Canada Without Poverty (CWP) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to eradicating poverty in Canada and educating Canadians about the link between poverty and human rights.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is a Filipino development consultant and an international indigenous activist of Kankana-ey Igorot ethnicity. From 2014 to 2020, she served as the third United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Maina Kiai is a Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist who formerly served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association from May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2017. Between 2018 and 2024, he headed Human Rights Watch's Alliances and Partnerships program.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association works independently to inform and advise the United Nations Human Rights Council. The special rapporteur examines, monitors, advises and publicly reports on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association worldwide.
Agnès Callamard is a French human rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
Miloon Kothari is a scholar and activist who served from 2000 to 2008 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing with the Human Rights Council. From 2015 to 2022, he was the President of UPR Info. He was convener of the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR) from 2009 to 2014, an Indian human rights coalition that notably focuses on the Universal Periodic Review. He is the founder of the Delhi-based Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), which aims to work toward the "realization of the human rights to adequate housing and land." He currently serves as a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
Catalina Devandas Aguilar is a Costa Rican lawyer who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from 2014 until 2020. She currently serves as Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations at Geneva. Previously, she worked for the World Bank and took part in the establishment of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with the United Nations Secretariat. She has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair.
Mihir Kanade is an author and professor of international law, human rights and development at the University for Peace (UPEACE), a university founded by the United Nations. He holds the concurrent positions of the Academic Coordinator of UPEACE since 2016, the Head of its Department of International Law since 2014, and the Director of the UPEACE Human Rights Centre since 2009.
E. Tendayi Achiume is a Professor of Law and former Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles. She served as the United Nations special rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from her appointment in September 2017 until November 2022. She was the first woman appointed to this position since its creation in 1993.
Tlaleng Mofokeng is a South African physician who is the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. She campaigns for universal health access and HIV care. She was named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021.
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