While the UN Charter clearly establishes collective security as the central goal of the UN, it accords human rights and humanitarian aid much less prominent roles. Nonetheless, over time both the protection of human rights and provision of humanitarian aid have become major roles of the UN system, and of regional inter-national organizations (IOs) and international NGOs as well. This chapter com-pares the role of the UN system as protector of human rights with its role as provider of humanitarian aid. Even though the two roles would seem at first to have much in common as two parts of a broader human security agenda, the UN’s role in the two issue-areas is very different.