Declining Jurisdiction, Forum Non Conveniens and Lis Pendens in the United States and the European Union

Even if a court has jurisdiction over a case there might be some situation when that court will decline to exercise this jurisdiction. The reasons for declining jurisdiction will be different in different legal systems. A court might decline jurisdiction because it deems the case to be to inconvenient for the parties or the court or it might decline jurisdiction because the case is already pending in another court. Different legal traditions look at jurisdiction differently and will as a result of this deal with the declining of jurisdiction differently. The different approaches of declining jurisdiction in the United States and in the European Union will be examined in this thesis.