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2 To begin, there is no freestanding constitutional right to pre-enforcement review in federal court. See Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U. S. 200, 220 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Such a right would stand in significant tension with the longstanding Article III principle that federal courts generally may not “give advisory rulings on the potential success of an affirmative defense before a cause of action has even accrued.” MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U. S. 118, 142 (2007) (, dissenting); see also Coffman v. Breeze Corps., 323 U. S. 316, 324 (1945) (a party may not “secur[e] an advisory opinion in a controversy which has not arisen”).

That said, a party subject to imminent threat of state enforcement proceedings may seek a kind of pre-enforcement review in the form of a “negative injunction.” This procedural device permits a party to assert “in equity … a defense that would otherwise have been available in the State’s enforcement proceedings at law.” Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy v. Stewart, 563 U. S. 247, 262 (2011) (Kennedy, J., concurring); accord, Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern Cal., Inc., 565 U. S. 606, 620 (2012) (, dissenting). In Ex parte Young, this Court recognized that use of this negative injunction against a governmental defendant provides a narrow exception to sovereign immunity. See 209 U. S., at 159–160. That exception extends no further than permitting private parties in some circumstances to prevent state officials from bringing an action to enforce a state law that is contrary to federal law.

The negative injunction remedy against state officials countenanced in Ex parte Young is a “standard tool of equity,” J. Harrison, Ex Parte Young, 60 Stan. L. Rev. 989, 990 (2008), that federal courts have authority to entertain under their traditional equitable jurisdiction, see Judiciary