JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND ARCHITECTURE

I participated in the conference on Architecture and Justice, organized by EMMTEC University of Lincoln, UK on 25-27 November 2009 with a paper titled "Architecture, Human Rights and Justice". You can click here for the draft programme and you can find my speech text below.

JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND ARCHITECTURE

The main purpose of this presentation is to highlight the necessity of adopting a human rights based approach in architectural thinking and practice in order to achieve justice through the process of production of space and the built environment. To this end this presentation is constructed under five parts. The first part will focus on the affinity between justice and human rights. The content of different rights is the theme of the second part of my presentation. I am trying to display the interactions between architecture and human rights in the third part and to explain the role of architecture in fulfilment and protection of human rights in the fourth part. The conclusion is examining how justice and human rights are being ignored in current architectural practices and what kind of solutions can be suggested.

“Justice is fundamental to our notions of societal order, that is, to the order sustained between ourselves without recourse to force. There is an increasingly strong assumption that justice is something to which we, as humans, have a universal right.” This is the definition which was mentioned in the poster of this conference. It was explained how justice is related to human rights and I think clarifying this might be a very good conceptual beginning for my speech.

Looking at the etymological meanings of “justice” and “right” in different languages, their ways of use and their philosophical conceptualization will show us the interrelations between these two concepts.

The word justice comes from the Latin word iustitia which means righteousness and equity. The word ‘right’ derives from old English riht and Germanic rekhtaz, which means ‘having moved in a straight line’.

In Arabic also the word “Hagh” (حق) which is being used in the meaning of “right” has the meaning of trueness, presence and justice and it carries the same meaning with the word “Adl” (عدل) which means justice. In Islamic philosophy there is a definition for justice which describes it as E’ta Kolle Zihagge Haggeh (اعطاء کل ذیحقه حقه) which means Justice is “giving everyone his right”. This sentence also emphasizes the interdependency between right and justice.

In Philosophy the idea of justice is attributed to Plato. In The Republic, Plato wrote a dialog between Socrates and his friend Cephalus about the meaning of justice. They came into definition of justice as returning debts. Plato wrote that justice is the repayment of debt (οφειλή) and completed when one‘s debt is fully returned.

In articulating these “debts” and the “idea of justice,” philosopher İoanna Kuçuradi emphasizes the demands deriving from injustice. “Injustice”, which is a state of affairs, is the condition which directly or indirectly limits the implementation of human possibilities. Kucuradi said that “injustice is the place where we find the debts to human beings as such; or, if we wish to call these debts by their modern name, it is the source wherefrom we deduce the principles we call basic human rights.”

Briefly, human rights, in which “all human beings are equal” and which are possessed by all human beings, are the “debts” of human beings to their fellow human beings. Thus, the concept of justice is closely associated with the demand for human rights.

According to Kucuradi, human rights secure the ground on which we can conceptualize the idea of justice, an idea and a conception of the human mind, which is related to injustice, the state of affairs. In Kucuradi’s philosophy, the idea of justice is formulated as a demand for human rights, which should be protected and fulfilled, and their various implications in the existing conditions at a given moment should be found and carried out.

That’s why the manifestation of justice in architecture is directly concerned to protection and fulfilment of human rights, especially those rights which architecture may deal with. Now two crucial questions can be asked: 1. which rights may architecture deal with? 2. How they can be protected or fulfilled through architecture?

In the search for an answer to the first question, we can examine the two different categories of human rights. First category includes rights which demand the direct protection of certain human potentialities in individuals. The second category is related to the general pre-conditions necessary to afford each individual the possibility to develop his or her potentialities. While the security of the individual and the so-called fundamental freedoms belong to the first category, the rights such as the right to a standard of living adequate for one’s health, the right to education and the right to work belong to the second category of human rights.

It is possible to say that architecture is concerned with the second category of human rights because it affects, directly or indirectly, many of the general pre-conditions which are essential for the possibility of developing human potentialities. Fulfilling most of these rights, such as housing, education, work and health, are connected to different spatial regulations. Thus, architecture has an important role in the empowerment and achievement of the rights of people to desirable work, right to rest and leisure, right to “standard of living adequate”, right to education, and right to participate in the cultural life of community, which are mentioned in the articles 23 to 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among these rights, right to standard of living adequate is defined as health and well-being of people including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control.

The role of architecture in fulfilment and protection of human rights can be considered twofold. On the one hand architecture is responsible for maintaining the accessibility of all human beings to facilities which constitute the minimum standards of human rights. For example, each and every human being should have access to shelter, education and work and should have the possibility of participating in the economical, politic, cultural and social life of his/her society. As its first obligation, architecture should facilitate these accessibilities especially for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups such as women, people with disabilities, minority groups, people in the conditions of poverty, homeless people, refugees, migrants, nomads and Romani people.

On the other hand architecture should improve the conditions of these facilities in order to strengthen the minimum standards of basic individual rights. This is the second responsibility of architecture, that is to say, developing the conditions of housing, education, health, work, and economic, politic, social and cultural life of the society. This means producing spaces and buildings more affordable and adequate, people-centred, peaceful, safe and secure, healthy, green, and more respectful to human needs and abilities, to privacy, to different types of lifestyles and to different cultural values in the case that they do not violate human rights.

We can observe that, especially in the so-called post-modern era, studies about the first duty of architecture, which includes empowering the accessibilities of all human beings to basic facilities, have been insufficient. Whereas the second task of architecture, which is recovering the conditions of space, has been focal point of many architectural practices, studies and researches. As a result, while the majority of people are living deprived of their basic rights, architecture is working on improving the living conditions of a small amount of privileged people consistently. For example, architectural education and profession are nearly ignoring the needs of underprivileged people when their main focus is designing “brilliant” and luxurious buildings and environments. While, none of us, as architects, have never been thought about how architecture can provide shelter for homeless people or developing the conditions of urban poor, we learnt all of the “glittering” buildings of star architects like Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid or Baron Norman Foster.

As a consequence, in terms of living conditions, the gap between prosperous part of society and distressed part is getting deep. I think architects are accomplices in this process and I have to agree all critics which condemn architecture to render service to power and capital.

For taking a step toward realization of justice in architecture, I think that architects should focus on their first obligation, which is obtaining accessibility to all people and planning different programmes which aim to answer the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Putting human rights in the centre should take place as the main goal of architectural education and profession.