Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents
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The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents is Convention #12 of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It specifies the modalities through which a document issued in one of the signatory countries can be certified for legal purposes in all the other signatory states. Such a certification is called an apostille. It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation.
States which have not signed the Convention must specify how foreign legal documents can be certified for its use. Sometimes two countries will have a special treaty concerning the recognition of each others documents, but usually not. When the country issuing or receiving the document does not recognise an apostille, you must usually take the document to the consulate of the foreign country you need to certify it or to an honorary consular officer appointed by that country who is qualifed to certify it.
In the United States, apostilles are usually affixed by the secretary of state in each US state or territory. Note that Canada is not a party to this convention and Canadian documents can not be certified with an apostille.
Parties to the Convention
- Andorra
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Brunei
- Bulgaria
- Colombia
- Comoros Islands
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Djibouti
- Dominica
- El Salvador
- Estonia
- Fiji
- Finland
- France (including DOM-TOM)
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Grenada
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Latvia
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macau
- Malawi
- Malta
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Netherlands (including Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles)
- Suriname
- New Zealand (including Niue)
- Norway
- Panama
- Portugal
- Republic of Macedonia (former Yugoslav)
- Romania
- Russia
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Lucia
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- San Marino
- Serbia and Montenegro
- Seychelles
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Solomon Islands
- South Africa
- Spain
- Swaziland
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turkey
- Tuvalu
- United Kingdom (including Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Anguilla, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Montserrat, St. Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin Islands)
- United States of America (including American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands)
- Vanuatu
- Venezuela
External links
- Hague Conference: full text of Convention #12 (http://hcch.e-vision.nl/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=41)
- U.S. State Department: questions-and-answers circular (http://travel.state.gov/law/hague_foreign_docs.html)