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.