662 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 39 democratic decision-making and allow for cultural reflexivity with respect to the way in which political, legal, economic, and social institutions are shaped.23 They may also be economically infeasible; human rights as maximal standards would for many individuals likely remain distant dreams,24 which normatively speaking could, in the words of Maurice Cranston, “push all talk of human rights out of the clear realm of the morally compelling into the twilight world of utopian aspiration.”25 In the case that human rights are more than minimal standards, feasibility becomes much less likely. Minimalism, therefore, not only shapes the nature of the entitlement social rights guarantee, it also shapes the nature of the burdens the right will impose; specifically, that the burdens not be overly burdensome.26 Indeed, this reality was not lost on those responsible for drafting the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In an attempt to specify claims and obligations pertaining to social rights that are sensitive to the needs and interests of both their beneficiaries and their duty-bearers, the resultant Covenant claims that each state bears the obligation to take steps with a view to progressively realizing the rights recognized under the Covenant and subject to the maximum resources that are available.27 This language recognizes that immediate achievement of the highest standards of health, education, and housing, for instance, is not what is required of social rights but that instead the duty-bearer has an obligation to make planned and targeted steps towards that goal. It also recognizes that the pools from which resources can be drawn for realizing these rights will vary. The acts of the duty-bearer will then be conditioned on “additional practical and normative considerations,”28 which may serve to alter obligations. According to this scheme, fundamental interests then shape the content of social rights, which is subject to further relevant considerations. These further relevant considerations then shape the content of the obligations, which are now unconditional.29 They are unconditional because other relevant conditions have been accounted for in their determination. 23. For an overview of this debate see for example Griffin, supra note 8, at 129–45 International Human Rights in Context: Law Politics and Morals 517–39 (Henry J. Steiner, Philip Alston, & Ryan Goodman eds, 3rd ed., 2008); Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice 57–126 (2d ed. 2003); John Rawls, Political Liberalism 144–150 (1993). 24. Griffin, supra note 8. 25. Maurice Cranston, Human Rights, Real and Supposed, in Political Theory and the Rights of Man 43, 52 (D. D. Raphael ed., 1967). 26. The set up of these minimalism-type tests is a variation on Nickel’s “entitlements plus” and Feinberg’s “claims-to” and “claims-against” theme, which holds that a right cannot be constituted by an entitlement alone. Norms that guide the behavior of the duty bearer must be added to the entitlement to constitute a fully-fledged human right. Nickel, supra note 15, at 30–32; Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy 64 (1973). 27. ICESCR, supra note 6, art. 2, ¶ 1. 28. Bilchitz, supra note 15, at 78. 29. Further relevant conditions include, but are not limited to, the availability of resources. A discussion of these conditions will be discussed in more detail in Section IV.