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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 90-1424
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MANUEL LUJAN, Jr., SECRETARY OF THE
INTERIOR, PETITIONER v. DEFENDERS
OF WILDLIFE et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eighth circuit
[June 12, 1992]

  Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court with
respect to Parts I, II, III-A, and IV, and an opinion with
respect to Part III-B in which the Chief Justice, Justice
White, and Justice Thomas join.
  This case involves a challenge to a rule promulgated by
the Secretary of the Interior interpreting 7 of the Endan-
gered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), 87 Stat. 892, as amended,
16 U. S. C. 1536, in such fashion as to render it applicable
only to actions within the United States or on the high seas.
The preliminary issue, and the only one we reach, is
whether the respondents here, plaintiffs below, have
standing to seek judicial review of the rule.
                      I
  The ESA, 87 Stat. 884, as amended, 16 U. S. C. 1531 et
seq., seeks to protect species of animals against threats to
their continuing existence caused by man.  See generally
TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153 (1978).  The ESA instructs the
Secretary of the Interior to promulgate by regulation a list
of those species which are either endangered or threatened
under enumerated criteria, and to define the critical habitat
of these species.  16 U. S. C. 1533, 1536.  Section 7(a)(2)
of the Act then provides, in pertinent part:
``Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and
with the assistance of the Secretary [of the Interior],
insure that any action authorized, funded, or carried
out by such agency . . . is not likely to jeopardize the
continued existence of any endangered species or
threatened species or result in the destruction or
adverse modification of habitat of such species which is
determined by the Secretary, after consultation as
appropriate with affected States, to be critical.''  16
U. S. C. 1536(a)(2).
  In 1978, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), on behalf of the
Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce
respectively, promulgated a joint regulation stating that the
obligations imposed by 7(a)(2) extend to actions taken in
foreign nations.  43 Fed. Reg. 874 (1978).  The next year,
however, the Interior Department began to reexamine its
position.  Letter from Leo Kuliz, Solicitor, Department of
the Interior, to Assistant Secretary, Fish and Wildlife and
Parks, Aug. 8, 1979.  A revised joint regulation, reinterpret-
ing 7(a)(2) to require consultation only for actions taken in
the United States or on the high seas, was proposed in
1983, 48 Fed. Reg. 29990 (1983), and promulgated in 1986,
51 Fed. Reg. 19926 (1986); 50 C.F.R. 402.01 (1991).
  Shortly thereafter, respondents, organizations dedicated
to wildlife conservation and other environmental causes,
filed this action against the Secretary of the Interior,
seeking a declaratory judgment that the new regulation is
in error as to the geographic scope of 7(a)(2), and an
injunction requiring the Secretary to promulgate a new
regulation restoring the initial interpretation.  The District
Court granted the Secretary's motion to dismiss for lack of
standing.  Defenders of Wildlife v. Hodel, 658 F. Supp. 43,
47-48 (Minn. 1987).  The Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit reversed by a divided vote.  Defenders of Wildlife v.
Hodel, 851 F. 2d 1035 (1988).  On remand, the Secretary
moved for summary judgment on the standing issue, and
respondents moved for summary judgment on the merits.
The District Court denied the Secretary's motion, on the
ground that the Eighth Circuit had already determined the
standing question in this case; it granted respondents'
merits motion, and ordered the Secretary to publish a
revised regulation.  Defenders of Wildlife v. Hodel, 707 F.
Supp. 1082 (Minn. 1989).  The Eighth Circuit affirmed.  911
F. 2d 117 (1990).  We granted certiorari, 500 U. S. ___
(1991).

                     II
  While the Constitution of the United States divides all
power conferred upon the Federal Government into -legisla-
tive Powers,- Art. I, 1, -[t]he executive Power,- Art. II, 1,
and -[t]he judicial Power,- Art. III, 1, it does not attempt
to define those terms.  To be sure, it limits the jurisdiction
of federal courts to -Cases'' and ``Controversies,- but an
executive inquiry can bear the name -case- (the Hoffa case)
and a legislative dispute can bear the name -controversy-
(the Smoot-Hawley controversy).  Obviously, then, the
Constitution's central mechanism of separation of powers
depends largely upon common understanding of what
activities are appropriate to legislatures, to executives, and
to courts.  In The Federalist No. 48, Madison expressed the
view that -[i]t is not infrequently a question of real nicety
in legislative bodies whether the operation of a particular
measure will, or will not, extend beyond the legislative
sphere,- whereas -the executive power [is] restrained within
a narrower compass and . . . more simple in its nature,- and
-the judiciary [is] described by landmarks still less uncer-
tain.-  The Federalist No. 48, p. 256 (Carey and McClellan
eds. 1990).  One of those landmarks, setting apart the
-Cases'' and ``Controversies- that are of the justiciable sort
referred to in Article III-``serv[ing] to identify those
disputes which are appropriately resolved through the
judicial process,-  Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 155
(1990)-is the doctrine of standing.  Though some of its
elements express merely prudential considerations that are
part of judicial self-government, the core component of
standing is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-
controversy requirement of Article III.  See, e. g., Allen v.
Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751 (1984).
  Over the years, our cases have established that the
irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains
three elements: First, the plaintiff must have suffered an
-injury in fact--an invasion of a legally-protected interest
which is (a) concrete and particularized, see id., at 756;
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 508 (1975); Sierra Club v.
Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 740-741, n. 16 (1972); and (b)
-actual or imminent, not `conjectural' or `hypothetical,'-
Whitmore, supra, at 155 (quoting Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461
U. S. 95, 102 (1983)).  Second, there must be a causal
connection between the injury and the conduct complained
of-the injury has to be -fairly . . . trace[able] to the
challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . th[e] result
[of] the independent action of some third party not before
the court.-  Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org.,
426 U. S. 26, 41-42 (1976).  Third, it must be -likely,- as
opposed to merely -speculative,- that the injury will be
-redressed by a favorable decision.-  Id., at 38, 43.
  The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden
of establishing these elements.  See FW/PBS, Inc. v.
Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 231 (1990); Warth, supra, at 508.
Since they are not mere pleading requirements but rather
an indispensable part of the plaintiff's case, each element
must be supported in the same way as any other matter on
which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the
manner and degree of evidence required at the successive
stages of the litigation.  See Lujan v. National Wildlife
Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 883-889 (1990); Gladstone,
Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 114-115, and
n. 31 (1979); Simon, supra, at 45, n. 25; Warth, supra, at
527, and n. 6 (Brennan, J., dissenting).  At the pleading
stage, general factual allegations of injury resulting from
the defendant's conduct may suffice, for on a motion to
dismiss we -presum[e] that general allegations embrace
those specific facts that are necessary to support the claim,-
National Wildlife Federation, supra, at 889.  In response to
a summary judgment motion, however, the plaintiff can no
longer rest on such -mere allegations,- but must -set forth-
by affidavit or other evidence -specific facts,- Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 56(e), which for purposes of the summary judgment
motion will be taken to be true.  And at the final stage,
those facts (if controverted) must be -supported adequately
by the evidence adduced at trial,- Gladstone, supra, at 115,
n. 31.
  When the suit is one challenging the legality of govern-
ment action or inaction, the nature and extent of facts that
must be averred (at the summary judgment stage) or
proved (at the trial stage) in order to establish standing
depends considerably upon whether the plaintiff is himself
an object of the action (or forgone action) at issue.  If he is,
there is ordinarily little question that the action or inaction
has caused him injury, and that a judgment preventing or
requiring the action will redress it.  When, however, as in
this case, a plaintiff's asserted injury arises from the
government's allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of
regulation) of someone else, much more is needed.  In that
circumstance, causation and redressability ordinarily hinge
on the response of the regulated (or regulable) third party
to the government action or inaction-and perhaps on the
response of others as well.  The existence of one or more of
the essential elements of standing -depends on the unfet-
tered choices made by independent actors not before the
courts and whose exercise of broad and legitimate discretion
the courts cannot presume either to control or to predict,-
ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 615 (1989) (opinion
of Kennedy, J.); see also Simon, supra, at 41-42; and it
becomes the burden of the plaintiff to adduce facts showing
that those choices have been or will be made in such
manner as to produce causation and permit redressability
of injury.  E.g., Warth, supra, at 505. Thus, when the
plaintiff is not himself the object of the government action
or inaction he challenges, standing is not precluded, but it
is ordinarily -substantially more difficult- to establish.
Allen, supra, at 758; Simon, supra, at 44-45; Warth, supra,
at 505.
                     III
  We think the Court of Appeals failed to apply the
foregoing principles in denying the Secretary's motion for
summary judgment.  Respondents had not made the
requisite demonstration of (at least) injury and redress-
ability.
                      A
  Respondents' claim to injury is that the lack of consulta-
tion with respect to certain funded activities abroad
-increas[es] the rate of extinction of endangered and threat-
ened species.-  Complaint -5, App. 13.  Of course, the
desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely
aesthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for
purpose of standing.  See, e. g., Sierra Club v. Morton, 405
U. S., at 734.  -But the `injury in fact' test requires more
than an injury to a cognizable interest.  It requires that the
party seeking review be himself among the injured.-  Id., at
734-735.  To survive the Secretary's summary judgment
motion, respondents had to submit affidavits or other
evidence showing, through specific facts, not only that listed
species were in fact being threatened by funded activities
abroad, but also that one or more of respondents' members
would thereby be -directly- affected apart from their
```special interest' in th[e] subject.-  Id., at 735, 739.  See
generally Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising
Comm'n., 432 U. S. 333, 343 (1977).
  With respect to this aspect of the case, the Court of
Appeals focused on the affidavits of two Defenders' mem-
bers-Joyce Kelly and Amy Skilbred.  Ms. Kelly stated that
she traveled to Egypt in 1986 and -observed the traditional
habitat of the endangered nile crocodile there and intend[s]
to do so again, and hope[s] to observe the crocodile directly,-
and that she -will suffer harm in fact as a result of [the]
American . . . role . . . in overseeing the rehabilitation of the
Aswan High Dam on the Nile . . . and [in] develop[ing] . . .
Egypt's . . . Master Water Plan.-  App. 101.  Ms. Skilbred
averred that she traveled to Sri Lanka in 1981 and -ob-
served th[e] habitat- of -endangered species such as the
Asian elephant and the leopard- at what is now the site of
the Mahaweli Project funded by the Agency for Internation-
al Development (AID), although she -was unable to see any
of the endangered species;- -this development project,- she
continued, -will seriously reduce endangered, threatened,
and endemic species habitat including areas that I visited
. . . [, which] may severely shorten the future of these
species;- that threat, she concluded, harmed her because
she -intend[s] to return to Sri Lanka in the future and
hope[s] to be more fortunate in spotting at least the
endangered elephant and leopard.-  Id., at 145-146.  When
Ms. Skilbred was asked at a subsequent deposition if and
when she had any plans to return to Sri Lanka, she
reiterated that -I intend to go back to Sri Lanka,- but
confessed that she had no current plans: -I don't know
[when].  There is a civil war going on right now.  I don't
know.  Not next year, I will say.  In the future.-  Id., at 318.
  We shall assume for the sake of argument that these
affidavits contain facts showing that certain agency-funded
projects threaten listed species-though that is question-
able.  They plainly contain no facts, however, showing how
damage to the species will produce -imminent- injury to
Mss. Kelly and Skilbred.  That the women -had visited- the
areas of the projects before the projects commenced proves
nothing.  As we have said in a related context, -`[p]ast
exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a present
case or controversy regarding injunctive relief . . . if unac-
companied by any continuing, present adverse effects.'-
Lyons, 461 U. S., at 102 (quoting O'Shea v. Littleton, 414
U. S. 488, 495-496 (1974)).  And the affiants' profession of
an -inten[t]- to return to the places they had visited
before-where they will presumably, this time, be deprived
of the opportunity to observe animals of the endangered
species-is simply not enough.  Such -some day- inten-
tions-without any description of concrete plans, or indeed
even any specification of when the some day will be-do not
support a finding of the -actual or imminent- injury that
our cases require.  See supra, at 4.
  Besides relying upon the Kelly and Skilbred affidavits,
respondents propose a series of novel standing theories.
The first, inelegantly styled -ecosystem nexus,- proposes
that any person who uses any part of a -contiguous ecosys-
tem- adversely affected by a funded activity has standing
even if the activity is located a great distance away.  This
approach, as the Court of Appeals correctly observed, is
inconsistent with our opinion in National Wildlife Federa-
tion, which held that a plaintiff claiming injury from
environmental damage must use the area affected by the
challenged activity and not an area roughly -in the vicinity-
of it.  497 U. S., at 887-889; see also Sierra Club, 405 U. S.,
at 735.  It makes no difference that the general-purpose
section of the ESA states that the Act was intended in part
-to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which
endangered species and threatened species depend may be
conserved,- 16 U. S. C. 1531(b).  To say that the Act
protects ecosystems is not to say that the Act creates (if it
were possible) rights of action in persons who have not been
injured in fact, that is, persons who use portions of an
ecosystem not perceptibly affected by the unlawful action in
question.
  Respondents' other theories are called, alas, the -animal
nexus- approach, whereby anyone who has an interest in
studying or seeing the endangered animals anywhere on the
globe has standing; and the -vocational nexus- approach,
under which anyone with a professional interest in such
animals can sue.  Under these theories, anyone who goes to
see Asian elephants in the Bronx Zoo, and anyone who is a
keeper of Asian elephants in the Bronx Zoo, has standing
to sue because the Director of AID did not consult with the
Secretary regarding the AID-funded project in Sri Lanka.
This is beyond all reason.  Standing is not -an ingenious
academic exercise in the conceivable,- United States v.
Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures
(SCRAP), 412 U. S. 669, 688 (1973), but as we have said
requires, at the summary judgment stage, a factual showing
of perceptible harm.  It is clear that the person who
observes or works with a particular animal threatened by
a federal decision is facing perceptible harm, since the very
subject of his interest will no longer exist.  It is even
plausible-though it goes to the outermost limit of plausibil-
ity-to think that a person who observes or works with
animals of a particular species in the very area of the world
where that species is threatened by a federal decision is
facing such harm, since some animals that might have been
the subject of his interest will no longer exist, see Japan
Whaling Assn. v. American Cetacean Soc., 478 U. S. 221,
231, n. 4 (1986).  It goes beyond the limit, however, and
into pure speculation and fantasy, to say that anyone who
observes or works with an endangered species, anywhere in
the world, is appreciably harmed by a single project
affecting some portion of that species with which he has no
more specific connection.
                      B
  Besides failing to show injury, respondents failed to
demonstrate redressability.  Instead of attacking the
separate decisions to fund particular projects allegedly
causing them harm, the respondents chose to challenge a
more generalized level of government action (rules regard-
ing consultation), the invalidation of which would affect all
overseas projects.  This programmatic approach has obvious
practical advantages, but also obvious difficulties insofar as
proof of causation or redressability is concerned.  As we
have said in another context, -suits challenging, not
specifically identifiable Government violations of law, but
the particular programs agencies establish to carry out
their legal obligations . . . [are], even when premised on
allegations of several instances of violations of law, . . .
rarely if ever appropriate for federal-court adjudication.-
Allen, 468 U. S., at 759-760.
  The most obvious problem in the present case is redress-
ability.  Since the agencies funding the projects were not
parties to the case, the District Court could accord relief
only against the Secretary: He could be ordered to revise
his regulation to require consultation for foreign projects.
But this would not remedy respondents' alleged injury
unless the funding agencies were bound by the Secretary's
regulation, which is very much an open question.  Whereas
in other contexts the ESA is quite explicit as to the Secre-
tary's controlling authority, see, e. g., 16 U. S. C.
1533(a)(1) (-The Secretary shall- promulgate regulations
determining endangered species); 1535(d)(1) (-The Secre-
tary is authorized to provide financial assistance to any
State-), with respect to consultation the initiative, and
hence arguably the initial responsibility for determining
statutory necessity, lies with the agencies, see 1536(a)(2)
(-Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and with
the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any- funded
action is not likely to jeopardize endangered or threatened
species) (emphasis added)).  When the Secretary promulgat-
ed the regulation at issue here, he thought it was binding
on the agencies, see 51 Fed. Reg., at 19928 (1986).  The
Solicitor General, however, has repudiated that position
here, and the agencies themselves apparently deny the
Secretary's authority.  (During the period when the Secre-
tary took the view that 7(a)(2) did apply abroad, AID and
FWS engaged in a running controversy over whether
consultation was required with respect to the Mahaweli
project, AID insisting that consultation applied only to
domestic actions.)
  Respondents assert that this legal uncertainty did not
affect redressability (and hence standing) because the
District Court itself could resolve the issue of the Secre-
tary's authority as a necessary part of its standing inquiry.
Assuming that it is appropriate to resolve an issue of law
such as this in connection with a threshold standing
inquiry, resolution by the District Court would not have
remedied respondents' alleged injury anyway, because it
would not have been binding upon the agencies.  They were
not parties to the suit, and there is no reason they should
be obliged to honor an incidental legal determination the
suit produced.  The Court of Appeals tried to finesse this
problem by simply proclaiming that -[w]e are satisfied that
an injunction requiring the Secretary to publish [respon-
dents' desired] regulatio[n] . . . would result in consulta-
tion.-  Defenders of Wildlife, 851 F. 2d, at 1042, 1043-1044.
We do not know what would justify that confidence,
particularly when the Justice Department (presumably
after consultation with the agencies) has taken the position
that the regulation is not binding.  The short of the matter
is that redress of the only injury-in-fact respondents
complain of requires action (termination of funding until
consultation) by the individual funding agencies; and any
relief the District Court could have provided in this suit
against the Secretary was not likely to produce that action.
  A further impediment to redressability is the fact that the
agencies generally supply only a fraction of the funding for
a foreign project.  AID, for example, has provided less than
10% of the funding for the Mahaweli Project.  Respondents
have produced nothing to indicate that the projects they
have named will either be suspended, or do less harm to
listed species, if that fraction is eliminated.  As in Simon,
426 U. S., at 43-44, it is entirely conjectural whether the
nonagency activity that affects respondents will be altered
or affected by the agency activity they seek to achieve.
There is no standing.
                     IV
  The Court of Appeals found that respondents had
standing for an additional reason: because they had
suffered a -procedural injury.-  The so-called -citizen-suit-
provision of the ESA provides, in pertinent part, that -any
person may commence a civil suit on his own behalf (A) to
enjoin any person, including the United States and any
other governmental instrumentality or agency . . . who is
alleged to be in violation of any provision of this chapter.-
16 U. S. C. 1540(g).  The court held that, because 7(a)(2)
requires interagency consultation, the citizen-suit provision
creates a -procedural righ[t]- to consultation in all -per-
sons--so that anyone can file suit in federal court to
challenge the Secretary's (or presumably any other official's)
failure to follow the assertedly correct consultative proce-
dure, notwithstanding their inability to allege any discrete
injury flowing from that failure.  911 F. 2d, at 121-122.  To
understand the remarkable nature of this holding one must
be clear about what it does not rest upon: This is not a case
where plaintiffs are seeking to enforce a procedural require-
ment the disregard of which could impair a separate
concrete interest of theirs (e.g., the procedural requirement
for a hearing prior to denial of their license application, or
the procedural requirement for an environmental impact
statement before a federal facility is constructed next door
to them).  Nor is it simply a case where concrete injury
has been suffered by many persons, as in mass fraud or
mass tort situations.  Nor, finally, is it the unusual case in
which Congress has created a concrete private interest in
the outcome of a suit against a private party for the
government's benefit, by providing a cash bounty for the
victorious plaintiff.  Rather, the court held that the injury-
in-fact requirement had been satisfied by congressional
conferral upon all persons of an abstract, self-contained,
noninstrumental -right- to have the Executive observe the
procedures required by law.  We reject this view.
  We have consistently held that a plaintiff raising only a
generally available grievance about government-claiming
only harm to his and every citizen's interest in proper
application of the Constitution and laws, and seeking relief
that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does
the public at large-does not state an Article III case or
controversy.  For example, in Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S.
126, 129-130 (1922), we dismissed a suit challenging the
propriety of the process by which the Nineteenth Amend-
ment was ratified.  Justice Brandeis wrote for the Court:
-[This is] not a case within the meaning of . . . Article
III . . . . Plaintiff has [asserted] only the right, pos-
sessed by every citizen, to require that the Government
be administered according to law and that the public
moneys be not wasted.  Obviously this general right
does not entitle a private citizen to institute in the
federal courts a suit . . . .-  Ibid.
  In Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), we
dismissed for lack of Article III standing a taxpayer suit
challenging the propriety of certain federal expenditures.
We said:
``The party who invokes the power [of judicial review]
must be able to show not only that the statute is
invalid but that he has sustained or is immediately in
danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of
its enforcement, and not merely that he suffers in some
indefinite way in common with people generally. . . .
Here the parties plaintiff have no such case. . . .
[T]heir complaint . . . is merely that officials of the
executive department of the government are executing
and will execute an act of Congress asserted to be
unconstitutional; and this we are asked to prevent.  To
do so would be not to decide a judicial controversy, but
to assume a position of authority over the governmen-
tal acts of another and co-equal department, an author-
ity which plainly we do not possess.''  Id., at 488-489.
  In Ex parte L-vitt, 302 U. S. 633 (1937), we dismissed a
suit contending that Justice Black's appointment to this
Court violated the Ineligibility Clause, Art. I, 6, cl. 2.  -It
is an established principle,- we said, -that to entitle a
private individual to invoke the judicial power to determine
the validity of executive or legislative action he must show
that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of
sustaining a direct injury as the result of that action and it
is not sufficient that he has merely a general interest
common to all members of the public.-  Id., at 634.  See also
Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Hawthorne, 342 U. S. 429,
433-434 (1952) (dismissing taxpayer action on the basis of
Frothingham.).
  More recent cases are to the same effect.  In United
States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974), we dismissed for
lack of standing a taxpayer suit challenging the Govern-
ment's failure to disclose the expenditures of the Central
Intelligence Agency, in alleged violation of the constitution-
al requirement, Art. I, 9, cl. 7, that -a regular Statement
and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public
Money shall be published from time to time.-  We held that
such a suit rested upon an impermissible -generalized
grievance,- and was inconsistent with -the framework of
Article III- because -the impact on [plaintiff] is plainly
undifferentiated and common to all members of the public.-
Richardson, supra, at 171, 176-177.  And in Schlesinger v.
Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208 (1974),
we dismissed for the same reasons a citizen-taxpayer suit
contending that it was a violation of the Incompatibility
Clause, Art. I, 6, cl. 2, for Members of Congress to hold
commissions in the military Reserves.  We said that the
challenged action, -standing alone, would adversely affect
only the generalized interest of all citizens in constitutional
governance . . . .  We reaffirm L-vitt in holding that
standing to sue may not be predicated upon an interest of
th[is] kind . . . .-  Schlesinger, supra, at 217, 220.  Since
Schlesinger we have on two occasions held that an injury
amounting only to the alleged violation of a right to have
the Government act in accordance with law was not
judicially cognizable because -assertion of a right to a
particular kind of Government conduct, which the Govern-
ment has violated by acting differently, cannot alone satisfy
the requirements of Art. III without draining those require-
ments of meaning.-  Allen, 468 U. S., at 754; Valley Forge
Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 483 (1982).  And only
two Terms ago, we rejected the notion that Article III
permits a citizen-suit to prevent a condemned criminal's
execution on the basis of -the public interest protections of
the Eighth Amendment;- once again, -[t]his allegation
raise[d] only the generalized interest of all citizens in
constitutional governance . . . and [was] an inadequate
basis on which to grant . . . standing.-  Whitmore, 495 U. S.,
at 160.
  To be sure, our generalized-grievance cases have typically
involved Government violation of procedures assertedly
ordained by the Constitution rather than the Congress.  But
there is absolutely no basis for making the Article III
inquiry turn on the source of the asserted right.  Whether
the courts were to act on their own, or at the invitation of
Congress, in ignoring the concrete injury requirement
described in our cases, they would be discarding a principle
fundamental to the separate and distinct constitutional role
of the Third Branch-one of the essential elements that
identifies those -Cases'' and ``Controversies- that are the
business of the courts rather than of the political branches.
-The province of the court,- as Chief Justice Marshall said
in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, 170 (1803) -is,
solely, to decide on the rights of individuals.-  Vindicating
the public interest (including the public interest in govern-
ment observance of the Constitution and laws) is the
function of Congress and the Chief Executive.  The question
presented here is whether the public interest in proper
administration of the laws (specifically, in agencies' obser-
vance of a particular, statutorily prescribed procedure) can
be converted into an individual right by a statute that
denominates it as such, and that permits all citizens (or, for
that matter, a subclass of citizens who suffer no distinctive
concrete harm) to sue.  If the concrete injury requirement
has the separation-of-powers significance we have always
said, the answer must be obvious: To permit Congress to
convert the undifferentiated public interest in executive
officers' compliance with the law into an -individual right-
vindicable in the courts is to permit Congress to transfer
from the President to the courts the Chief Executive's most
important constitutional duty, to -take Care that the Laws
be faithfully executed,- Art. II, 3.  It would enable the
courts, with the permission of Congress, -to assume a
position of authority over the governmental acts of another
and co-equal department,- Frothingham v. Mellon, 262
U. S., at 489, and to become -`virtually continuing monitors
of the wisdom and soundness of Executive action.'-  Allen,
468 U. S., at 760 (quoting Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 15
(1972)).  We have always rejected that vision of our role:
``When Congress passes an Act empowering administra-
tive agencies to carry on governmental activities, the
power of those agencies is circumscribed by the authori-
ty granted.  This permits the courts to participate in
law enforcement entrusted to administrative bodies
only to the extent necessary to protect justiciable
individual rights against administrative action fairly
beyond the granted powers. . . .  This is very far from
assuming that the courts are charged more than
administrators or legislators with the protection of the
rights of the people.  Congress and the Executive
supervise the acts of administrative agents. . . .  But
under Article III, Congress established courts to
adjudicate cases and controversies as to claims of
infringement of individual rights whether by unlawful
action of private persons or by the exertion of unautho-
rized administrative power.''
Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288, 309-310 (1944).  -Individu-
al rights,- within the meaning of this passage, do not mean
public rights that have been legislatively pronounced to
belong to each individual who forms part of the public.  See
also Sierra Club, 405 U. S., at 740-741, n. 16.
  Nothing in this contradicts the principle that -[t]he . . .
injury required by Art. III may exist solely by virtue of
`statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates
standing.'-  Warth, 422 U. S., at 500 (quoting Linda R. S.
v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617, n. 3 (1973)).  Both of the
cases used by Linda R. S. as an illustration of that princi-
ple involved Congress's elevating to the status of legally
cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were
previously inadequate in law (namely, injury to an indivi-
dual's personal interest in living in a racially integrated
community, see Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.,
409 U. S. 205, 208-212 (1972), and injury to a company's
interest in marketing its product free from competition, see
Hardin v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 390 U. S. 1, 6 (1968)).  As
we said in Sierra Club, -[Statutory] broadening [of] the
categories of injury that may be alleged in support of
standing is a different matter from abandoning the require-
ment that the party seeking review must himself have
suffered an injury.-  405 U. S., at 738.  Whether or not the
principle set forth in Warth can be extended beyond that
distinction, it is clear that in suits against the government,
at least, the concrete injury requirement must remain.
                  *   *   *
  We hold that respondents lack standing to bring this
action and that the Court of Appeals erred in denying the
summary judgment motion filed by the United States.  The
opinion of the Court of Appeals is hereby reversed, and the
cause remanded for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
                            It is so ordered.