1 INTRODUCTION

Although the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court is very wide (see Chapter 1), there are some limits and restrictions which the court will consider in exercising its discretion to determine its own jurisdiction. For example, as mentioned in Chapter 1, para 7, the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court cannot be assumed in circumstances provided by the Crown Immunity Act 1947 and the State Immunity Act 1978. Convention rules or other doctrines also restrict the scope of exercising or maintaining jurisdiction on the merits of a case, as will be seen in this and in the following chapters. On the other hand, the court may, by an anti-suit injunction, restrain a litigant from continuing proceedings commenced in a foreign court if there are grounds for protecting rights, or asserting its own jurisdiction (see Chapter 7).