"[1] With a charitable trust, this power of enforcement is usually vested in the Attorney General.
However, such conceptual objections seem less strong since the decision of the House of Lords in McPhail v Doulton [1971] AC 424 where Lord Wilberforce rode roughshod over objections to widening the class of valid discretionary trusts on the basis that there would be difficulty ascertaining beneficiaries for the court to enforce the trust in favour of.
Cases such as Morice v Bishop of Durham (1805) 9 Ves Jr 399 and Re Astor [1952] Ch 534 re-affirm the court's disinclination to enforce trusts that are not specific and detailed.
The second exception is when the trust is created to build or maintain a tomb or a monument as in the case of Re Hooper [1932] 1 Ch 38.
In various jurisdictions in the United States, the beneficiary principle has been abolished, so that a trust can be for a purpose, even if it is not charitable, and the courts will enforce it.