164 THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 33: 113 obligations,” as the Committee has atte mpted, cannot addres s this symbiotic relationship. Because it seeks to rank each obligation according to its correlation with the core, it cannot ca pture the dependence of one over the other. Secondly, we have seen that the listi ng of “core obligations” may often be more about the signaling by inte rnational organizations of their own jurisdictional powers and competence. We can see parallel dynamics at work in the judicial process, with courts re lying on a justiciable “core” as falling under their particular competence. The risk, in bot h supervisory and adjudicatory mechanisms, is that th e greater the technical r esponse to institutional competence and jurisdiction, the greater the slide of the minimum core in normative force. V. THE CONTENT IN SEARCH OF A CONCEPT? Neither the Essence, Consensu s, nor Obligations Approaches satisfactorily conclude the search for the content of the minimum core. The Essence Approach asks the right questi on—why, after all, should we respect economic and social rights if we do not attach grea t importance to norms like survival or dignity? Yet the essentialist approach does injustice to the question, which is better posed within a more pluralist interpretative frame of “rights” rather than “minimum co res.” Moreover, merely pointing t o normative goals does not by itself re solve problems of validity and application. The Consensus Approach commends it self by f ocusing on both agreement and validity, and yet the re sulting core is likewise impeded by uncertainty as to whose agreement c ounts. Finally, the correlation between “core” rights and “cor e” duties addressed in the Obligations Approach is defeated by the polycentricity of du ty-holders and begs additional questions, such as who the duty-hol ders are and how the ob ligations may be grounded given present institutional strictures. This Part examines the quest for a mi nimum core in re verse. Such an examination starts from the proposition that the legal ventures at stake in the concept of the minimum co re—of claiming, ranking, and limiting in the area of economic and social rights—are inadequately understood. Simply reaching for the minimum core label often stands in place of this analysis. Once t he challenges in these activities are explicitly addressed, the perceived need for the concept recedes, and the more relevant questi ons—of benchmarking, limiting, globalizing, and claiming—can be pursued. I give brief detail to each operation in turn, in or der to call for a new rese arch agenda while concluding the old. A. Prescribing Content: Indicators and Benchmarks The first goal for the emerging economic and social rights discourse is to meet the challenges of en forcement and supervision. As we have seen, the minimum core concept promises to guide the emerging and meas urable POGGE, WORLD POVERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 160 (2002) (presenting a fra mework of ascending institutional commitments).