Tragedy a Genesis for Change

Eight years on from the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in West London in June 2017, a new book is examining building safety failures across Australia and internationally through the prism of private law.

The book, Private Law and Building Safety, explores how private law perspectives can help to promote a new era of building safety internationally. The collection is the result of a joint research project led by Associate Professor Matthew Bell and Professor Andrew Robertson of Melbourne Law School with Professors Susan Bright and Ben McFarlane of the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Law. It comes out of research symposia held in Oxford and Melbourne in 2023 and the project was funded by the Oxford-Melbourne Research Partnership. The Partnership was established in 2009 through the generous philanthropy of Allan Myers AC KC.

At the book’s launch at University College London on 12 June 2025, Associate Professor Bell observed that the book’s genesis was in the Grenfell Tower fire and other widely-publicised building failures.

"Our project started in early 2020 with an idea that the almost entirely regulatory-driven response to the failings exposed by Grenfell and other building disasters revealed two types of gaps,” he said.

“The first of these was a lack of detailed consideration of how private law norms – particularly, in the fields of contract, negligence and property law – may have contributed to the building safety crisis, and how they might play a role in responding to it. The second gap was that private law scholarship had only shown marginal interest in building safety as a forum for study and reflection.

“The way in which buildings are planned, constructed, maintained and occupied directly impacts upon the homes and livelihoods of millions, and we all have a vital stake in those activities resulting in buildings that keep us safe. We hope this book may make at least a small contribution, not only to avoiding high profile catastrophes such as the Grenfell Tower fire, but more broadly in striking an effective balance between the self-interest that often underpins the enforcement of private law rights, and the need in a cohesive society for high-quality yet affordable places in which to live and work.”

The book contains 10 essays offering perspectives on the interface between private law and building safety in the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Singapore, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Private Law and Building Safety is published by Hart Publishing.