Hague Service Convention
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The Hague Service Convention, or the Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, is a multilateral treaty signed in The Hague on 15 November 1965 by the members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It allows service of judicial documents from one signatory state to another without recourse to consular and diplomatic channels. It was not the first Convention to tackle the issue of service between states, the 1905 Civil Procedure Convention also signed in The Hague also contained clauses dealing with service. That earlier convention did not command wide support and was only ratified by 22 countries.
Service of process in civil cases prior to the Convention was done by means of a Letter Rogatory, (or a Letter of Request), a formal request from a Court in one country to another in which the defendant is domiciled. This formal document usually required transmission from the originating Court to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in the state of origin, who then forwarded it, possibly through various Embassies, to the MFA in the destination state. The foreign MFA would then pass the documents to the judicial authorities in that state, who would then go about the service procedures. Proof of service would then be returned via the same long winded channels.
The Hague Service Convention enabled a somewhat simplified route by establishing Central authorities in each of the signatory states. Although the exact implementation varies from state to state, it is possible for a Court in one state to send the judicial documents directly to the Central authority who was then responsible for service. The Letter Rogatory is also no longer necessary, as a simplified model request form is used, and aids the process by being widely recognised by the relevant authorities. There are currently 55 states who have ratified the Hague Service Convention. In addition to service through the recipient country's central authority, some signatory countries permit incoming service on their residents directly by mail.
Other similar treaties to the Hague Service Convention include the Inter-American Convention and Council Regulation (EC) No. 1348/2000.
