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the Eleventh Amendment as evidencing and exemplifying, we have extended a State's protection from suit to suits brought by the State's own citizens. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890). Furthermore, the dignity and respect afforded a State, which the immunity is designed to protect, are placed in jeopardy whether or not the suit is based on diversity jurisdiction. As a consequence, suits invoking the federal-question jurisdiction of Article III courts may also be barred by the Amendment. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996).

In extended criticisms of the Court's recognition that the immunity can extend to suits brought by a State's own citizens and to suits premised on federal questions, some of them as recent as last Term, see id., at 83-93 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); id., at 109-110 (SOUTER, J., dissenting), various dissenting and concurring opinions have urged a change in direction. See, e. g., Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 247 (1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Were we to abandon our understanding of the Eleventh Amendment as reflecting a broader principle of sovereign immunity, the Tribe's suit, which is based on its purported federal property rights, might proceed. These criticisms and proposed doctrinal revisions, however, have not found acceptance with a majority of the Court. We adhere to our precedent.

Under well-established principles, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, and, a fortiori, its members, are subject to the Eleventh Amendment. In Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775, 779–782 (1991), we rejected the contention that sovereign immunity only restricts suits by individuals against sovereigns, not by sovereigns against sovereigns. Since the plan of the Convention did not surrender Indian tribes' immunity for the benefit of the States, we reasoned that the States likewise did not surrender their immunity for the benefit of the tribes. Indian tribes, we therefore concluded, should be accorded the same status as foreign sover

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eigns, against whom States enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity. Id., at 782.

The Tribe's suit, accordingly, is barred by Idaho's Eleventh Amendment immunity unless it falls within the exception this Court has recognized for certain suits seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against state officers in their individual capacities. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). The Young exception to sovereign immunity was an important part of our jurisprudence when the Court adhered to its precedents in the face of the criticisms we have mentioned, and when the Court, overruling Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1 (1989), held that Congress, in the exercise of its power to regulate commerce with Indian tribes, may not abrogate state sovereign immunity. Seminole Tribe, supra, at 71, n. 14. We do not, then, question the continuing validity of the Ex parte Young doctrine. Of course, questions will arise as to its proper scope and application. In resolving these questions we must ensure that the doctrine of sovereign immunity remains meaningful, while also giving recognition to the need to prevent violations of federal law.

When suit is commenced against state officials, even if they are named and served as individuals, the State itself will have a continuing interest in the litigation whenever state policies or procedures are at stake. This commonsense observation of the State's real interest when its officers are named as individuals has not escaped notice or comment from this Court, either before or after Young. See, e. g., Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 846-847 (1824) (stating that the State's interest in the suit was so "direct" that "perhaps no decree ought to have been pronounced in the cause, until the State was before the court") (Marshall, C. J.); Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 114, n. 25 (1984) (noting that Young rests on a fictional distinction between the official and the State); see also Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458

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U. S. 670, 685 (1982) (opinion of STEVENS, J.) (recognizing the irony that a state official's conduct may be considered "state action'" for Fourteenth Amendment purposes yet not for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment). Indeed, the suit in Young, which sought to enjoin the state attorney general from enforcing state law, implicated substantial state interests. 209 U. S., at 174 ("[T]he manifest, indeed the avowed and admitted, object of seeking [the requested] relief [is] to tie the hands of the State") (Harlan, J., dissenting). We agree with these observations.

To interpret Young to permit a federal-court action to proceed in every case where prospective declaratory and injunctive relief is sought against an officer, named in his individual capacity, would be to adhere to an empty formalism and to undermine the principle, reaffirmed just last Term in Seminole Tribe, that Eleventh Amendment immunity represents a real limitation on a federal court's federal-question jurisdiction. The real interests served by the Eleventh Amendment are not to be sacrificed to elementary mechanics of captions and pleading. Application of the Young exception must reflect a proper understanding of its role in our federal system and respect for state courts instead of a reflexive reliance on an obvious fiction. See, e. g., Pennhurst, supra, at 102–103, 114, n. 25 (explaining that the limitation in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), of Young to prospective relief represented a refusal to apply the fiction in every conceivable circumstance).

B

Putting aside the acts of state officials which are plainly ultra vires under state law itself, see Pennhurst, supra, at 101–102, n. 11, there are, in general, two instances where Young has been applied. The first is where there is no state forum available to vindicate federal interests, thereby placing upon Article III courts the special obligation to ensure the supremacy of federal statutory and constitutional law. This is a most important application of the Ex parte Young

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doctrine and is exemplified by the facts in Young itself. See 209 U. S., at 146 ("The necessary effect and result of [the challenged] legislation must be to preclude a resort to the courts (either state or Federal) for the purpose of testing its validity").

As is well known, the ultimate question in Young was whether the State's attorney general could enforce a state ratesetting scheme said by the objecting shareholders of railroad companies to be unconstitutional. The shareholders sought a federal injunction against Attorney General Young, prohibiting enforcement of the rate scheme. Attempting to show the lack of necessity for federal intervention, Young maintained the shareholders could wait until a state enforcement proceeding was brought against the railroads and then test the law's validity by raising constitutional defenses. The Court rejected the argument, first because a single violation might not bring a prompt prosecution; and second because the penalties for violations were so severe a railroad official could not test the law without grave risk of heavy fines and imprisonment. The Court added that a federal suit for injunctive relief would be "undoubtedly the most convenient, the most comprehensive and the most orderly way in which the rights of all parties can be properly, fairly and adequately passed upon." Id., at 166.

Where there is no available state forum the Young rule has special significance. In that instance providing a federal forum for a justiciable controversy is a specific application of the principle that the plan of the Convention contemplates a regime in which federal guarantees are enforceable so long as there is a justiciable controversy. The Federalist No. 80, p. 475 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (“[T]here ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions"). We, of course, express no opinion as to the circumstances in which the unavailability of injunctive relief in state court would raise constitutional concerns under current doctrine.

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Young was not an isolated example of an instance where a state forum was unavailable. See, e. g., Osborn, supra, at 842-843 (explaining that if it was within the power of the plaintiff to make the State a party to the suit it would "certainly [be] true" that a suit against state officials would be barred, but if the "real principal" is "exempt from all judicial process" an officer suit could proceed); United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196 (1882) (permitting suit for injunctive relief to proceed where there did not otherwise exist a legal remedy for the alleged trespass); Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270, 299 (1885) (explaining that the state-law remedy for Virginia's unconstitutional refusal to accept its own bond coupons in satisfaction of state taxes was, in fact, “no remedy”). In these early cases, the Court, although expressing concern over the lack of a forum, did not rely on the lack of a forum as its doctrinal basis. After abandonment of Osborn's rule that a suit was not against the State so long as the State was not a party of record, see Governor of Georgia v. Madrazo, 1 Pet. 110, 124 (1828), the Young fiction was employed where "the act complained of, considered apart from the official authority alleged as its justification, and as the personal act of the individual defendant, constituted a violation of right for which the plaintiff was entitled to a remedy at law or in equity against the wrongdoer in his individual character.” In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 502 (1887). In other words, where the individual would have been liable at common law for his actions, sovereign immunity was no bar regardless of the person's official position. See, e. g., Lee, supra, at 221 (common-law tort of trespass); Belknap v. Schild, 161 U. S. 10, 18 (1896) (common-law tort of patent infringement); Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U. S. 204, 221-222 (1897) (common-law tort of trespass); Scully v. Bird, 209 U. S. 481, 483 (1908) (common-law tort of injuring plaintiff's reputation and sale of certain products). Under this line of reasoning, a state official who committed a common-law tort was said to have