Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
Private law theory is dominated by questions about duties owed to parties with correlative rights and the remedies that secure performance or respond to breach. Private law theorists rarely consider rules of standing that confer liberties not to refrain from bringing or defending proceedings and powers to bring and defend them. Yet parties with standing get to decide how law is enforced. So it matters what answers are given to questions such as: who can ask the court to declare the existence of a right, enforce a right or enjoin a breach of duty, invalidate a transaction, or make some other direction; what are the criteria by reference to which this question is decided; who can defend a claim; and what criteria determine that question, apart from a claimant’s choice of target? Conventional wisdom holds that private law has no rules of standing …

€ (Westlaw)

Jessica Hudson and Charles Mitchell, ‘Standing in trusts law, the beneficiary principle and the juridical nature of trustee duties’ (2026) 142 Law Quarterly Review 211-235.