ABSTRACT
Precise Rules give more explicit guidance than vague standards. It would seem to follow that regulators will enforce precise rules more reliably than vague standards. The sociolegal literature on rules versus standards is itself paradoxical. On the one hand, there is a literature claiming to show that American law is more standards-oriented, British law more oriented to rules. While American law is more substantive and less formal than British law, British nursing-home regulatory practice is less formal than is American practice. In 1987, when we started an international comparative study of nursing-home regulation in Australia, the USA, Britain and Japan, we were rather embarrassed by the Australian standards. In Australia, because there are no defined protocols for inspectors, nursing-home management has no choice but to focus on the outcomes for which the inspectors are searching.
