2008] The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights 171 In the area of aid and development, the Committee has suggested that “core obligations establish an int ernational minimum t hreshold that all developmental policies should be designed to resp ect . . . . If a nati onal or international antipoverty strategy does not reflect this minimum threshold, it is inconsistent with the le gally binding obl igations of the S tate party.” 336 Supportive of this enterpri se, although lacking its deontological character, is the expansion of the development project beyond the measurement of aggregate economic growth into th e indices of “human development” 337 and the “millennium d evelopment goals,”338 thus contributing both measurement and motivation to a minimum standard for all countrie s to follow. Here again, the institutional obligations are an underexplored area of focus. Obligations arise with respect to states’ membership in international financial institutions, such as the Internatio nal Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and regional banks,339 as well as the United Nations agencies themselves 340—along with the way that economic and soci al rights are taken into a ccount in states’ unilateral lending or aid policies. This is, of course, a contentious issue—the Committee’s suggestion that extraterritoria lity is legally, rather than morally, imposed (a position also taken by the U.N. Commission’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food)341 has been disputed by st ates, markedly the Unit ed States.342 Extraterritoriality is probably mo st contentious in the collectively endorsed regime of global trade. 343 For its support ers, the mi nimum core i s supposed to delineate a minimally protected sphere into which economic selfinterest cannot penetrate. Here, causality is most controversial, given the variety of actors in the internationa l trade regime, including transnational corporations and international agencie s. The demarcation of economic and Opinion, 2004 I.C.J. 136, at 180 (July 9) (suggesting that the Covenant applies to Israel’s occupation in the West Bank). 336. Statement: Poverty and the Covenant , supra note 5, ¶ 17; see also General Comment No. 14, supra note 17, ¶¶ 39-40, 45 (descr ibing international obligations flowing from the right to health for states with respect to their membership of international organizations, international financial institutions, and coordinated disaster relief measures and noting states’ obligations to provide international assistance and cooperation); General Comment No. 15, supra note 17, ¶ 38 (repeating states’ obligations to provide international assistance and cooperation with respect to the right to water). 337. See, e.g., READINGS IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, supra note 302. 338. See MDGs, supra note 28. The Committee itself has refe renced the commitments of the MDGs. See, e.g., General Comment No. 15 , supra note 17, ¶ 54 (linking national benchm arks on the right to water to the ind icators adopted in the M illennium Declaration based on States’ comm itment to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water). 339. E.g., General Comment No. 12, ¶ 41, supra note 33; General Comment No. 15, supra note 17, ¶ 36 (linking the IFI’s to the states themselves). 340. See U.N. Econ. & Soc. Council [ECOSOC], Comm. on Econ., Soc. & Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 2: Internati onal Technical Assistance Measures , ¶ 9, U.N. Doc. E/1990/23 (1994). 341. See U.N. Econ. & Soc. Council [ECOSOC], Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2006/44 (Mar. 16, 2006) (prepared by Jean Ziegler). 342. See U.N. Comm’n on Hum an Rights, 60t h Sess., 51st m tg., at 16 U.N. Doc . E/CN.4/2004/SR.51(Apr. 16, 2004 ), where U.S . Representative Richard S. W illiamson suggested that the Special Rapporteur should be chastised for his “irresponsible and unfounded statements.” 343. See, e.g., General Comment No. 12, supra note 33, ¶ 20; ECOSOC, Right to Health, supra note 240.