Rigorous legal theoretical work should explain and justify not just substantive legal rules, but also the procedural superstructure within which those rules are invoked, litigated, and given effect. Dr Timothy Liau’s monograph, Standing in Private Law: Powers of Enforcement in the Law of Obligations and Trusts, is an example of this. Against the long-standing view that standing rules are either absent from or inconsequential to private law, Liau argues that courts and commentators should recognise the existence of a general rule of standing in private law – only the primary right-holder has standing to enforce his rights – with several exceptions.