Participation right as a human right and case of Edirne City Council

Abstract

Three generations of human rights are likely to be asserted when historical evolution of human rights are considered (Mourgeon, 1990). Those of the 1776 American and 1789 French Human Rights Manifestations which root in individualism based on the natural law are the oldest examples of first generation. In these examples, freedom of the person is considered in an abstract and judicial context. Second generation of human rights implemented in the second part of 19th century are those social and economic rights from which only a fraction of the society is benefited. The last generation is those rights of solidarity. Participation right is consisted in the solidarity rights. As could be envisaged in the other human rights, the participation rights are also wrapped into an institutional character by being engaged in international treaties. Thus urban and participation rights are still in the formation process. Today participation right as being one of the solidarity rights is the most significant one under consideration and development (Mourgeon, 1990; Tekeli, 2011). Development of the participation right in Turkey is mostly handled via ‘city councils’ formed mainly in line with the Local Agenda 21 concept. Thus the main aim of this study is analyse how much suitable the city councils are for the development of participation right. In this context, the study will focus on role of the city councils they assume on discussion, dialogue, negotiation and informing processes for the society on the issues related to the city and how effective they are on this performance. Thus in this study, the case of Edirne City Council will be examined regarding these issues. For the data collection, interview method will be used in the study. In this context, interviews will be carried out with the Municipality of Edirne, NGOs in Edirne, professional organizations and the city council. In terms of epistemological approach, the research process is interpretive and explanatory over legal and administrative regulations within the scope of field study. At the same time, the research approaches the subject with a deductive approach, which reaches the data by starting from the theory. In addition, the research is partly inductive, because of the fact that it aims to contribute to the theory by using the findings of the field study. It also carries a qualitative research characteristic in the context of the interviews to be carried out with the participants and the interviews carried out with relevant institutions and individuals.