158 THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW B. [Vol. 33: 113 Enforcing Core Obligations: Justiciable Complaints As well as assisting the Committee in its efforts to rank and cabin the duties held by states , the Obligations Approach serves to substantiate the minimum core by reference to the justiciability of economic and social rights. The work of the minimum core concept is to assist in th e adjudication of economic and social rights in dome stic courts and supr anational tribunals.253 Supporters of this approach contend that the “inherently just iciable” elements of economic and social rights make “a very sound star ting point for any discussion about the ‘core content.’”254 This approach targets the justiciability obstacle raised by economic and social rights, which has obstructed efforts to interpret them.255 It bears certain similarities with the Consensus Approach in that it references judicial authority in order to substantiate content, but it does not do s o merely to meas ure empirical agreement, but ra ther in order to resolve institutional challenges. The fo cus on justiciability is thus more attentive, like the Committee’s Gene ral Comments, to the institutional competence of the body articulating the minimum core (in this case, a court or tribunal). It thus constrains the mi nimum core to the minimum sphere of enforceable protection of economic and social rights. South African constitutional law, a vanguard in many areas of 256 constitutional rights, has inspired much comment ary on the way that the minimum core concept might resolve the justiciability challenges of economic and social rights. 257 For example, the amicus curi ae in both the right to housing and the right to medical treatment decisions under the South African Constitution relied heavily on fashioning their claims into an argument for the minimum core. They asserted that, withou t its judicial inclusion, the new constitution’s economic and social ri ghts might become “empty rights and false promises.” 258 A minimum core points to the content of t he state’s negative obligation to respect rights (which, unlike the positive obligations, 253. General Comment No. 14, supra note 10, ¶ 60 (“Incorporation enables courts to adjudicate violations of the right to health, or at least its core obligations, by direct reference to the Covenant.”); see also General Comment No. 15 , supra note 17, ¶ 57 (enc ouraging incorporation of instrum ents recognizing the right to water). 254. de Vos, Essential Components, supra note 12, at 24 (exam ining the possible core content of the right of access to adequate housing in the South African Constitu tion); see also id. at 26 (calling for “an appreciation of the interrelated and mutually enforcing nature of th e concept of inherently justiciable aspects to the right on the one hand and the idea of a set of minimum core obligations on the other”). 255. E.g., David Marcus, Supranational Adjudication, supra note 64, at 55 (describing the perception of a lack of content and of non-justiciability as two parts of a negative feedback mechanism). 256. Jeanne M. Woods, Justiciable Social Rights as a Cr itique of the Liberal Paradigm , 38 TEX. INT'L L.J. 763, 766-67 (2003) (suggesting that “[t]he South African experience in the constitutional adjudication of social rights has profound implications for the international community at large”). 257. BILCHITZ, supra note 9, at 179-83; Liebenberg, Needs, Rights and Transformation , supra note 106; Roux, supra note 12; Scott & Alston, supra note 7. 258. See, e.g., Press Release, Community Law Centre on its A micus Intervention, Statement on Constitutional Court Case: Treatment Action Campaign v Minister of Health (Apr. 30, 2002) (on file with author) (calling for the recognition of a “basic core right to the necessities of life”); see also Heads of Argument for Hum an Rights C omm'n of S. Af r. Cmty. Law Ctr. as Am ici Curiae Supporting Respondents, ¶¶ 26-29, 34-36, South Africa v Grootboom 2001 (1) SA 46 (CC) 66 (S. Afr.) (CCT 11/00) (relying on the minimum core to substantiate the right of access to housing).