Getting the gunpowder out of their heads: The limits of rights-based DDR

The United Nations adopted an explicitly rights-based approach to disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) in 2006 as part of its larger agendas of "liberal peace building," integrated peace operations, and human rights mainstreaming. Rights-based DDR represents yet another example of how human rights discourse, law, and practice manage to penetrate adjacent domains-first the development, then humanitarian, and now security sectors. This article examines the development of rights-based DDR and looks at two key limitations. It concludes by recommending that DDR be rights-sensitive rather than rights-based.