E/CN.4/2006/43 page 17 55. A detailed analysis of the position of the States and institutions which do not accept such legally binding obligations would show that they do not truly deny the importance of human rights, or the value of these norms, providing legitimacy to a national community. In other words, they do not deny the morality of these claims, and may not object to these human rights being claimed as ethical entitlements of all civilized members of the community. Their objections are to accepting the legality of these rights. Until the human rights community can respond to these objections systematically, no amount of wishful thinking or rhetorical appeal to all these agents would realize these rights. In that case, claiming poverty as the denial of human rights will make little contribution to the actual alleviation of poverty. 56. What are the main objections to the legal status of these rights? These issues have been discussed exhaustively in the human rights literature. A few of these points can be used to sustain our argument. First, the argument that economic, social and cultural rights, which have a direct bearing on the conditions of poverty, are not properly defined, is no longer sustainable. The language of the treaties, the discussions that took place during their adoption and the general comments of the treaty bodies have clarified the nature of these rights in sufficient detail to bring out the full implication of accepting these rights. However, there is a point of contention about these rights which merit further consideration. This is the notion of progressive realization, which recognizes that the full realization of some aspects of economic, social and cultural rights may be constrained by available resources and may need to be realized over a period of time. Fulfilling specific targets over a period would entail identifiable obligations for different duty bearers. In actual practice, however, given the uncertainty in the course of implementing any programme, obligations associated with progressive implementation are sometimes claimed to be imprecise and difficult to render justiciable. 57. One response to such arguments would be to differentiate between rights which a society should accept as requiring immediate implementation and others which may be implemented over a period of time, through appropriate policies and programmes making maximum use of available resources. This has been recognized in the international human rights discourse as “core rights”. Human rights philosophers have talked about “basic rights”, such as life, liberty and basic sustenance, and those without which no other rights can be fulfilled. It is not that fulfilling such rights requires no resources; in fact, all rights require the use of resources even when States’ actions are limited to non-intervention and preventing third parties from engaging in activities that may violate those rights. The immediate nature of these obligations, for realizing the core rights, follows from the paramount nature of the urgency of fulfilling these rights, because there is an overwhelming consensus in society in favour of those rights. The legitimacy of both the States and the international community depends on the realization of these rights, and like requirements of defence and law and order, States regard the fulfilment of these rights as the first priority of all their actions. 58. In short, if a society accepts certain goals as a primary value to all members of society, then the obligations of fulfilling them would be accepted by State parties and all other agents as binding on them. The success of a notion of extreme poverty would then very much depend upon formulating these principles in a manner that generates universal applicability. The description of extreme poverty suggested by the independent expert as a combination of income poverty, human development poverty and social exclusion would meet the requirements of such universal applicability.