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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 was signed by the original signatories on October 5, 1961. 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 and is often added to documents that have been in some manner signed by a Notary, lawyer or other public official such as the clerk of a court of record in their official capacity. 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 qualified to certify it. It may need to be certified by the highest government official in the country where it originated, such as the Secretary of State or Minister of Foreign Affairs, before being accepted by the consular officer of the foreign country, this process is known as chain authentication as an unbroken chain of government officials each certifies the signature (and seal in some cases) of the prior official in the first country and the consular officer then certifies that the document should be recognized as authentic in the country of destination. Usually that consular officer's signature can be authenticated in the country of destination as well. In the United States, apostilles are usually affixed by the secretary of state in each US state or territory. It may be necessary for an intermediary official to affix a certification that the original signatory (notary or clerk) was authorized to sign the public document, leading to a complex process for obtaining the apostille[1]. Note that Canada is not a party to this convention and Canadian documents cannot be certified with an apostille. In the Russian Federation the local office of the Ministry of Justice will affix an apostille for local notaries.
Parties to the convention
- Albania
- Andorra
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Brunei
- Bulgaria
- Colombia
- Comoros Islands
- Cook Islands
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Djibouti
- Dominica
- El Salvador
- Estonia
- Fiji
- Finland
- France (including DOM-TOM)
- Georgia
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Grenada
- Hong Kong SAR[1]
- Honduras
- Hungary
- India
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Kazakhstan
- Latvia
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macau
- Malawi
- Malta
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Mexico
- Moldova
- Montserrat
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Netherlands (including Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles)
- New Zealand (including Niue)
- Norway
- Panama
- Poland
- Portugal
- Republic of Macedonia (former Yugoslav)
- Romania
- Russia
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Lucia
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Seychelles
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Solomon Islands
- South Africa
- Spain
- Suriname
- Swaziland
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turkey
- Tuvalu
- Ukraine
- 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
