138 THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 33: 113 concerned with human diffe rence and parti cularity. 139 Amartya Sen’s two objections to the list—namely its possibl e inattentiveness to context and its possible displacement of public reasoning140—are pertinent in evaluating the structure of t he minimum core in a t heory of di stributive justice. They are equally apt for a legally defined, rather than phi losophically credentialed, minimum core. C. Questioning the Essence Approach The Essence Approach sets up a no rmative investigation into why we value economic and s ocial rights and which of their aspects should be most important. This approach is helpful in ensuring th at advocates are able to articulate the minimum core of rights through vocabularies that draw attention to the important ethical justifications for economic and social rights (as for all human rights). This approach is consistent with the insight that rights belong to a category of legal entit lement that is, for special reasons, immune to the vagaries of short-term politics or cost-benefit decisionmaking. Yet as I have shown, as between th e “basic needs” and “human dignity” inquiries, there are no axioms that can deliver an uncontes ted minimum core. This contestation suggests that a different expression of the content of rights may be more suitable than the pointed advocacy of a no rmative minimum. Because the normative foundations ar e open to disagreement, the minimum core will look different to an advocat e of human flourishing in comparison with an advocate of basi c survival, just as the co re will look different in various instantiations of both survival and dignity. Disagreement is not merely a feature of phil osophical debate, but is quickly revealed by constitutional comparison. For example, there are competing (although not uncomplementary) values alongside human dignit y that could inform the inte rpretation of the minimum core.141 The values of equality and lib erty, for exampl e, are more appropriate for some in formulating a normative minimum for economic and social rights, and may produce both more concrete an d interventionist 142 measures. These were famously reconcil ed by John Rawls to advance a set of principles for the just distribution of “primary goods,” which could serve to guide a “maximin” policy of maximizi ng distributions to t hose in the 143 In German constitutional law, for minimum (or worst off) position. 139. E.g., Karin Van Marle, ‘The Capabilities Approach,’ ‘The Imaginary Domain,’ and ‘Asymmetrical Reciprocity’: Feminist Perspectives on Equality and Justice , 11 FEMINIST LEGAL STUD. 255, 256, 272-73 (2003) (suggesting that Drucilla Cornell’s approach to an “imaginary domain” and Iris Young’s approach to “asymm etrical reciprocity,” show a greater concern for difference than Nussbaum’s “capabilities approach”). Van Marle reg isters Cornell’s own doubts about reducing th e “central” capabilities to a list. Id. at 272-73. 140. Amartya Sen, Elements of a Theory of Human Rights , 32 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 315, 333 n.31 (2004). 141. See supra note 74 (drawing attention to different redistributive theories, su ch as communitarianism, civic republicanism, and market socialism, which emphasize different values). 142. See, e.g., Frank I. Michelman, Foreword: On Protecting the Poor Through the Fourteenth Amendment, 83 H ARV. L. REV. 7, 35 (1969) (dev eloping a theory of a constitu tional right to “minimum protection”). 143. RAWLS, supra note 74, at 132-33.