This article describes the practices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relating to the protection of refugees’ rights to physical security and access to justice as observed by the author in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana (2005–2007). It argues that UNHCR worked to ‘privatize’ these rights. The article suggests that the failure of UNHCR to administer criminal law in the camp is a breach of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, since no political authority assumes the duty to protect refugees’ rights to physical security and access to justice, according to standard conceptions of ‘human right’, refugees have no humanrights to physical security and access to justice. The article concludes that ‘human rights’ are not universal and that those who are excluded from the human rights framework are the same persons who were excluded from the citizenship rights framework.
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