118 THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 33: 113 inquiry—by searching not for content to the minimum core concept, but rather for new concepts to facilitate the rights’ “c ontent,” operating as law. This Part therefore examines whethe r we can def er much of the s upervisory and enforcement work to bench marks and indicators, m uch of the obligations analysis to the assessme nt of causality and respon sibility, and much of the normative and political work to more open expressions of economic and social rights. One consequence of this approach is to transfer the ambitions for the minimum core concept into other areas. These are examined briefly. A second consequence is the departure from the analy tic science of stipulating core and non-core needs alo ng a discourse of rights. If there is any work left for the minimum core, i t may only be in its pot ential—not yet ass essed—to register the claims for recognition of material disadvantage from previously obscured claimant groups . This conclusion reveals an important insight into what is g ained (and lost) fro m the comparative exercise, and the degree of “bricolage” that rights-advocates who move between fi elds of law must incorporate.18 * * * Before analyzing the three approaches and examining the possibilities of a fourth, we begin by examining the orig ins of the minimum core, its current operation, and its predict ed future. The next two sect ions mark out both the international and constitutional legal op erations for the concept and restricts its analysis to economic and s ocial rights rather t han other human ri ghts.19 This is necessary becaus e the concept of a minimu m core is not confined, structurally at least, to economic and social rights. Conceivably, claimants and advocates could apply the concept of a minimum essentia l content to all universal, compelling, and predictable interests ap propriately labeled as rights.20 Let us consider the operation of cultural rights. In the original articulation of the minimum core, the Co mmittee did not refer to examples of cultural rights,21 despite the inclusion of cultural rights within its mandate. In 18. Mark Tushnet, The Possibilities of Comparative Constitu tional Law, 108 Y ALE L.J. 1225, 1285-86 (1999) [hereinafter Tushnet, The Possibilities of Comparative Constitutional Law ] (citing CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS, THE SAVAGE MIND 16-17 (1962), who distinguishe d between the conceptual orientations of engineering and bricolage). 19. This Article adopts the term inology of “econo mic and social rights” to describ e these rights, which are contrasted, along with cultural rights, with the more traditionally understood “civil and political rights.” See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 21, G.A. Res. 217A, at 71, U.N. GAOR, 3d Sess. 1st plen. m tg., U.N. Doc. A/810 (Dec. 12, 1948); see also International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, pm bl., Dec. 16, 1966, 993 U.N.T.S. 3, 9 [h ereinafter Covenant] (recognizing that “th e ideal of free hum an beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights”). Econom ic and social rights are described in various constitutional contexts as “soc ial welfare rights” and “econom ic rights” (North Am erica), “socioeconomic rights” (South Africa), and “social rights” (Europe). For an explanation of the diverging classifications of economic and social rights between international and constitutional law, even between post-1966 constitutions, see, for example, Terence Daintith, The Constitutional Protection of Economic Rights, 2 INT’L J. CONST. L. 56, 61-62 (2004). 20. Compare BILCHITZ, supra note 9, at 190-99 (defending the minimum core by analogy to the right to privacy), with Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). 21. See General Comment No. 3, supra note 1; infra note 79 and accompanying text.