Apostille convention

The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, the Apostille convention, or the Apostille treaty is an international treaty drafted by 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 (French: certification). It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation in domestic law.

Procedure

Apostilles are affixed by Competent Authorities designated by the government of a state which is party to the convention.^[2] A list of these authorities is maintained by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Examples of designated authorities are embassies, ministries, courts or (local) governments. For example, in the United States, the Secretary of State of each state and his or her deputies are usually competent authorities. In the United Kingdom, all apostilles are issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Milton Keynes.^[3]

To be eligible for an apostille, a document must first be issued or certified by an officer recognised by the authority that will issue the apostille. For example, in the US state of Vermont, the Secretary of State maintains specimen signatures of all notaries public, so documents that have been notarised are eligible for apostilles.^[4] Likewise, courts in the Netherlands are eligible of placing an apostille on all municipal civil status documents directly. In some cases, intermediate certifications may be required in the country where the document originates before it will be eligible for an apostille. For example, in New York City, the Office of Vital Records (which issues, among other things, birth certificates) is not directly recognised by the New York Secretary of State.^[5] As a consequence, the signature of the City Clerk must be certified by the County Clerk of New York County to make the birth certificate eligible for an apostille.^[6][7]

Information included in an apostille

The apostille itself is a stamp or printed form consisting of 10 numbered standard fields. On the top is the text APOSTILLE, under which the text Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961 (English: Hague Convention of 5 October 1961) is placed. In the numbered fields the following information is added:

1. Country ... [country name]
   This public document
2. has been signed by ... [name]
3. acting in the capacity of ... [function]
4. bears the seal/stamp of ... [authority]
   certified
5. at ... [location]
6. the ... [date]
7. by ... [name]
8. No ... [apostille registration number]
9. Seal/stamp ... [of the authority giving the apostille]
10. Signature ... [signature of authority giving the apostille]

The information can be placed on the (back of the) document itself, or attached to the document as an allonge.

Eligible documents

Four types of documents are mentioned in the convention:^[1]

• court documents
• administrative documents (e.g. civil status documents)
• notarial acts
• official certificates which are placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity, such as official certificates recording the registration of a document or the fact that it was in existence on a certain date and official and notarial authentications of signatures.

Procedure for non-states parties (Legalization)

States that have not signed the Convention must specify how foreign legal documents can be certified for its use. Two countries may have a special convention on the recognition of each other's public documents, but in practice this is infrequent. When such a convention is lacking, as is normally the case, the document must be certified by the foreign ministry of the country where the document originated and then by the foreign ministry of the government where the document will be used; one of the certifications will often be performed at an embassy or consulate. In practice this means the document must be certified twice before it can have legal effect in the receiving country. For example, as a non-signatory, Canadian documents for use abroad must be certified by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa or by a consular official abroad and subsequently by the relevant government office or consulate of the receiving state.

States parties

The convention is in force for all members of the European Union and all but 10 members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The next countries to accede to the convention are Kyrgyzstan, Costa Rica and Oman, for which the treaty will enter into force on 31 July, 14 December 2011 and 30 January 2012 respectively.

Abuse

The Apostille does not give information regarding the quality of the document, but certifies the signature (and the capacity of who placed it) and correctness of the seal/stamp on the document which must be certified. In 2005 The Hague Conference surveyed its members and produced the a report in December 2008 which expressed serious concerns about Diplomas and Degree certificates, titled "THE APPLICATION OF THE APOSTILLE CONVENTION TO DIPLOMAS INCLUDING THOSE ISSUED BY DIPLOMA MILLS". The possible abuse of the system was highlighted "Particularly troubling is the possible use of diploma mill qualifications to circumvent migration controls, possibly by potential terrorists." (page 5) The risk comes from the fact that the various government stamps give the document an air of authenticity without anyone having checked the underlying document. "An official looking certificate may be issued to a copy of a diploma mill qualification, and then subsequently issued with an Apostille, without anyone having ever verified the signature on, let alone the contents of, the diploma." (page 7) Further member states indicated "they would be obliged to issue an Apostille for certification of a certified copy of a diploma issued by a diploma mill". (page 15) The Hague Conference expressed concern as to whether this issue could impact the entire convention. "…the Apostille does not 'look through the certification' and does not relate to the diploma itself …. There is a clear risk that such practices may eventually undermine the effectiveness and therefore the successful operation of the Apostille Convention". (page 5)^[9]

In February 2009 the Hague Conference decided to amend the wording on the Apostille to make it clear that no one was checking whether the document being attested was genuine or a fake. The new wording to be used was as follows. "This Apostille only certifies the signature, the capacity of the signer and the seal or stamp it bears. It does not certify the content of the document for which it was issued."^[10]

See also

• Legalization (international law)
• Hague Conference on Private International Law
• Convention on the issue of multilingual extracts from civil status records

References

External links

• treaty text (HCCH)
• status (HCCH)