The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is about more than making sure that existing human rights are applied to persons with disability. It also subtly reformulates and extends existing human rights to take into account the specific rights experience of persons with disability. In fact, the argument can be made that the Convention comes close to creating new rights, or at least very new ways of seeing common rights. This suggests a deeper point about the fragmentation of international human rights law and the increasingly recognized need to take into account the irreducibility of the experience of certain categories of persons. The Disabilities Convention has some interesting lessons to teach about human rights more generally.

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The emergence of the idea of a ‘responsibility to protect’ has dominated debates about what should be done to stop atrocities. I argue that, despite notable progress, R2P remains embedded in a vision of ‘international’ rescue as primarily coming from outside, and as such ends up neglecting the very real and often much more decisive role that ‘people’ — individuals, civil society, resistance movements — have had in protecting themselves. I argue for a rehabilitation of the role of resistance to atrocities, a better understanding of how the international intervention paradigm may affect it, and a new understanding of the proper role of the international community — one of helping people to help themselves in the face of massive violence.

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This article attempts to explore how changes in the UN's mission may force it to rethink its responsibilities in terms of human rights. Until recently, the UN had never thought of itself as actually capable of violating human rights. But a number of evolutions have made this a possibility. Starting with peace operations and culminating with the international administration of entire territories, the UN is increasingly taking on sovereign-like functions. This evolution may be seen as a larger metaphor for what the UN is becoming, from a traditional inter-governmental organization to one increasingly entrusted with tasks of global governance. With these new powers, it would seem, come new responsibilities.