Chapter 2 | Page 80 ‘resource scarcity does not relieve States of certain minimum obligations in respect of the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights.’176 The standards used to determine rights violations should give consideration to the absolute obligation of minimum core content, and relative obligation based on the ability of the State to go beyond the minimum core content. For instance, while involuntary poverty is a clear indication of an ESC rights violations that can be eliminated by total enforcement of ESC rights,177 the presence or absence of poverty in itself does not necessarily indicate respect for or violation of ESC rights.178 On the one hand, when a State fails to provide its people with the means to realise their basic needs that can be seen, it is argued, as a violation of their human rights and human dignity.179 However, Künnemann suggests that what he calls the ‘the basic needs fallacy’―namely, that every instance of deprivation of human needs is seen as a violation of human rights―could mislead our efforts to address violations of ESC rights’.180 In this regard, Pogge asserts: An unfulfilled human right manifests a human rights violation only if there are one or more human agents who are bringing about the un-fulfillment of the human right in question even while they could and should have known that their conduct would have this result.181 Without proper measures to determine improvement or regression in the attainment of ESC rights, monitoring these rights may not be possible for the ESCR Committee, human rights advocates or domestic courts. Moreover, without such measures, States cannot be held accountable for their effort, or lack of effort to fulfil the ESC rights within their resources. Thus the Covenant 176 Ibid., [10]. 177 Hertel and Minkler, above n 2, 2. 178 Maria Green, 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Indicators: Current Approaches to Human Rights Measurement' (2001) 23 Human Rights Quarterly 1062-1097, 1075. 179 Katherine Eddy, 'On revaluing the currency of human rights' (2007) 6(3) Politics Philosophy Economics 307-328. 180 181 Künnemann, above n 15, 334. Thomas Pogge, 'Are we violating the human rights of the world's poor?' in David Kinley, Wojciech Sadurski and Kevin Walton (eds), Human Rights: Old Problems, New Possibilities (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2013) 40, 49.