This book seeks to investigate the growing jurisdictional interaction between national and international courts, ie: their parallel involvement in the same or related disputes in the light of competing theoretical, ideological and methodological discourses on the nature of the relationship and the means to regulate it. In particular it explores what, if any, rules of international law could, or perhaps should govern such interactions, and regulates forum selection or multiple proceedings involving national and international courts. In addition, the book explores the standards of review employed by international courts vis-à-vis the decisions of their domestic counterparts and vice versa. It posits that the regulation of such interactions ultimately depends on the selection of the overarching paradigm that governs the relations between national and international courts (hierarchical as opposed to non-hierarchical and disintegrative or integrative conceptual frameworks).

Following academic discussion of the problems and solutions pertaining to the interaction between national and international courts, the book considers the potential applicability of several jurisdiction-regulating measures to jurisdictional interactions between national and international courts. These include rules on forum selection and rules designed to regulate multiple proceedings (e.g., lis alibi pendens and res judicata), utilization of comity based measures and doctrines, such as discretionary stay or dismissal of proceedings and margin of appreciation judicial review, and examination of the prohibition against abuse of rights. This segment of the book provides lawyers and academics with a 'tool kit' of measures which could be employed in cases involving jurisdictional interactions between national and international courts.

About the Author:
Yuval Shany serves since 2005 as a Senior Lecturer, at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law (and since 2006, he is also the Academic Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University). His education comprises of an LL.B. cum laude from the Hebrew University 1995; an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University, 1997 and a PhD in Law, from SOAS, at the University of London, 2001. Before joining the Hebrew University, Shany has occupied the position of a senior lecture at the Law School of the College of Management Academic Studies in Israel. Shany has spent time in Harvard as a Research Fellow in the Harvard Human Rights Program (2004-2005), and as a Visiting Researcher at the Amsterdam Center for International Law (2005). Later on this year, he will be a Visiting Professor at the Georgetown Law Center (2007).