How Americans Enforce the Law
$75.45
- Paperback
376 pages
- Release Date
13 October 2026
Summary
In most countries, bureaucratic agencies handle regulatory enforcement. But the United States does things differently. Embedded in statutes governing consumer protection, antitrust, employment, civil rights, and the environment are more than 10,000 “private rights of action” – legal provisions that empower ordinary citizens and their lawyers to enforce the law through lawsuits. This is how Americans regulate everything from wage theft to air pollution to corporate fraud.
How Ameri…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781503648395 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1503648397 |
| Author: | Diego Zambrano |
| Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
| Imprint: | Stanford University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 376 |
| Release Date: | 13 October 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
Critics Review
“A clear and persuasive exploration of a menace hiding in plain sight. The crucial question Americans need to face, but have ignored for too long, is how to resolve thorny disputes. Zambrano unearths a legal tradition that, while valuable, has gone off the rails. And he points the way forward.” —-Marc J. Dunkelman, author of Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress and How to Bring it Back
“In this timely, transformative, and eminently readable account of America’s pervasive and longstanding reliance on private litigation to enforce public law, Diego Zambrano convincingly shows that private enforcement offers a crucial counterweight to executive power in a government of, by, and for the people.“—James E. Pfander, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
“One of the most unusual features of American government is the way we frequently enforce laws not through state action, but through litigation by private citizens—something known as ‘right of private action.’ As Diego Zambrano points out, this is useful in certain circumstances like employment law, but is a costly and inefficient way of regulating other sectors like infrastructure. Zambrano provides clear and well-reasoned ideas for reform of this practice.“—Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University
Diego Zambrano
Diego A. Zambrano is Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.
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