172 THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 33: 113 social rights and obligations in th e area of trade is as complex 344 as it is urgent.345 Yet, it is not clear that the conce pt of the minimum core assists us any better than the general language of economic and soci al rights, and the analysis of the obligations they might entail.346 D. Making Claims: A Word on Language If the minimum core is unable to a ssist in the difficult challenges of prescribing rights or of ranking obligations, its in tuitive appeal may reside elsewhere. Do advocates of t he minimum core ( and, as noted by one S outh African commentator, “[m]ost human rights scholars are minimum core campaigners”) 347 perceive something that these anal ytics miss? Does the concept retain a hold on our normative imaginations that we should be wary to discard? These remarks on language follow the intuition that there is much to be gained from a concept that directs at tention and priority in the area of economic and social rights to those groups most marginalized, vulnerable, and subject to the greatest leve l of materi al disadvantage. This applies to both international and na tional planes of legal decis ionmaking. And yet this intuition points to a different intellectual strategy than that raised by the other activities. Rather than attempting to reconcile the minimum core concept with settled foundations, a new research agenda may assess its potential instrumentally and criti cally. In one sens e, this move is in keeping with the wider project of instrumenta lizing the vocabulari es of s ocial justice, with all of its attendant dange rs and opportunities. 348 In other, more aesthetic terms, this strategy departs from the search for th e “rhetoric of or der” behind the claims of the core of economic and soci al rights, but instead seeks to assess the concept as an “energ y source,” one that migh t inspire or motivate change or reform.349 We are no longer within the “r igorously charted moral space of 344. Andras Sajo, Socioeconomic Rights and the International E conomic Order, 35 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 221, 250 (2002) (suggesting but dismissing in the present environment the possibility of legal obligations, but recognizing the “intellectual challenge” presented); cf. Thomas Pogge, Introduction, in FREEDOM FROM POVERTY AS A HUMAN RIGHT: WHO OWES WHAT TO THE VERY POOR? 1, 6 (Thomas Pogge ed., 2007). 345. E.g., ROBERT HOWSE & MAKAU MUTUA, INT'L CTR. FOR HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRATIC DEV., PROTECTING HUMAN RIGHTS IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY: CHALLENGES FOR THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (2000), http://www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/publications/globalization/wtoRightsGlob.html (examining legal obligations to respect human rights in trade and investment agreements). 346. Research into the relevant legal responsibil ities have inspired a range of “linkages” studies. E.g., Joel P. Trachtm an, Legal Aspects of a Poverty Age nda at the WTO : Trade Law and “Global Apartheid,” 6 J. INT’L ECON. L. 3 (2003) (canvassing liberaliza tion and redistribution as measures that are bo th within th e institutional reach of the W TO); cf. Robert Wai, Countering, Branding, Dealing: Using Social Rights in and around the International Trade Regime, 14 EUR. J. INT’L L. 35 (2003). 347. Lehmann, supra note 6, at 180. 348. E.g., FRASER & HONNETH, RECOGNITION OR REDISTRIBUTION, supra note 26; see also Kerry Rittich, The Future of Law and Development: Second Generation Reforms and The Incorporation Of The Social , 26 M ICH. J. INT'L L. 199, 241 (2004) (“in second generation reform s, human rights are better understood not as the answer to the social deficit but as the terrain of struggle”). 349. Pierre Schlag, Rights in the Postmodern Condition , in LEGAL RIGHTS, supra note 76, at 263, 264.