See thread at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2006OctDec/0037.html . Current summary: http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/CR-its-20061102/#selection-precedence is unclear about the position of linked rules in the precedence order. The difference between linked rules and external rules (if there is one) is unclear. There is the proposal of giving local, *inherited* information precedence over global rules, which may be dropped.
Resolved by the following reformulation of the list in sec. 5.4, see action item http://www.w3.org/2006/12/13-i18nits-minutes.html#action10 : 1.Implicit local selection in documents (ITS local attributes on a specific element) 2. Global selections in documents (using a rules element) Inside each rules element the precedence order is: 1. Any rules inside the rules element 2. Any rules linked via the XLink href attribute Note: If identical selections are defined in different rules elements within one document, the selection defined by the last takes precedence. Note: ITS doesn't define precedence related to rules defined or linked based on non-ITS mechanisms (such as processing instructions for linking rules). 3. Selections via defaults for data categories, see Section 6.1: Position, Defaults, Inheritance and Overriding of Data Categories