Apostille Convention

Not to be confused with Apostle (messenger, esp. Christian); or an apostil, meaning a marginal note or gloss.

Apostille Convention

Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents
State parties to the convention (members of the HCCH)   State parties to the convention (non-members of the HCCH)   States Parties for which the convention has not entered into force
Signed	5 October 1961
Location	The Netherlands
Effective	14 January 1965
Condition	ratification by 3 states
Parties	109
Depositary	Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands)
Languages	French (prevailing in case of divergence) and English
Apostille Convention at Wikisource

The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of 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, and normally supplements a local notarisation of the document.

Procedure

Apostilles are affixed by Competent Authorities designated by the government of a state which is party to the convention. 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.

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. 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. 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. In Japan all the official documents are issued in Japanese language, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA, JAPAN) then provides an apostille for these documents. In India the apostille certification can be obtained from the Ministry of External Affairs

Information

An apostille issued by Norwegian authorities.

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 (French for Hague Convention of 5 October 1961) is placed. This title must be written in French for the Apostille to be valid (article 4 of the Convention). In the numbered fields the following information is added (may be in official language of the authority which issues it or in a second language):

1. Country ... [e.g. Hong Kong, China]
   This public document
2. has been signed by [e.g. Henry Cho]
3. acting in the capacity of [e.g. Notary Public]
4. bears the seal/stamp of [e.g. High Court of Hong Kong]
   Certified
5. at [e.g. Hong Kong]
6. the ... [e.g. 16 April 2014]
7. by ... [e.g. the governor of the special administrative district of Hong Kong, China]
8. No ... [e.g. 2536218517]
9. Seal/stamp ... {of the authority giving the apostille}
10. Signature

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:

• 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.

Legalization

Main article: legalization (international law)

A State that has 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. Otherwise, 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 of the state 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 Canadian consular official abroad and subsequently by the relevant government office or consulate of the receiving state.

Apostille vs. Legalization
An Apostille of the Hague issued by the State of Alabama  As Canada is a non-signatory, Canadian documents for use abroad must be certified twice: at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and subsequently by the consulate of the receiving state (in this case, the Netherlands)

States parties

The convention has 110 parties and is in force for all members of the European Union and all but 10 members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The most recent state to accede to the convention is Tajikistan (entry into force 31 October 2015).

State	Entry into Force	Apostille not recognised in	Comment
Albania	9 May 2004	Belgium (until 2015), Germany, Greece, Italy (until 2011) and Spain
Andorra	31 Dec 1996
Antigua and Barbuda	1 Nov 1981
Argentina	18 Feb 1988
Armenia	14 Oct 1994
Australia	16 Mar 1995
Austria	13 Jan 1968	Burundi, Dominican Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Azerbaijan	2 Mar 2005	Germany, Hungary (until 2005), Netherlands (until 2010)
Bahamas	10 Jul 1973
Bahrain	31 Dec 2013
Barbados	30 Nov 1966
Belarus	31 May 1992
Belgium	9 Feb 1973	Albania (until 2015), Dominican Republic, India (until 2008), Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine (until 2004), Uzbekistan
Belize	11 Apr 1993
Bosnia and Herzegovina	6 Mar 1992
Botswana	30 Sep 1966
Brunei	3 Dec 1987
Bulgaria	29 Apr 2001
Burundi	13 Feb 2015	Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland
Cape Verde	13 Feb 2010
Chile	30 Aug 2016
Colombia	30 Jan 2001
Cook Islands	30 Apr 2005
Costa Rica	14 Dec 2011
Croatia	8 Dec 1991
Cyprus	30 Apr 1973
Czech Republic	16 Mar 1999
Kingdom of Denmark	26 Dec 2006		does not apply for Greenland and the Faroe Islands
Dominica	3 Nov 1978
Dominican Republic	30 Aug 2009	Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands
Ecuador	2 Apr 2005
El Salvador	31 May 1996
Estonia	30 Sep 2001
Fiji	10 Oct 1970
Finland	26 Aug 1986
France	24 Jan 1965
Georgia	14 May 2007	Germany (until 2010) and Greece (until 2015)
Germany	13 Feb 1966	Albania, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Georgia (until 2010), India, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Moldova, Mongolia, Paraguay, Peru (until 2014), Tajikistan, Ukraine (until 2010) and Uzbekistan
Greece	18 May 1985	Albania, Georgia (until 2015), Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Peru, Uzbekistan
Grenada	7 Apr 2002
Honduras	30 Dec 2004
Hong Kong	25 Apr 1965		The convention is still applicable to Hong Kong despite the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong on 1 July 1997.
Hungary	18 Jan 1973	Azerbaijan (until 2005),
Iceland	27 Nov 2004
India	14 Jul 2005	Belgium (until 2008), Finland (until 2009), Germany, Netherlands (until 2008) and Spain (until 2008)
Ireland	9 Mar 1999
Israel	14 Aug 1978
Italy	11 Feb 1978	Albania (until 2011),
Japan	27 Jul 1970
Kazakhstan	30 Jan 2001
Kosovo	14 Jul 2016	Romania
Kyrgyzstan	31 Jul 2011	Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Greece
Latvia	30 Jan 1996
Lesotho	4 Dec 1966
Liberia	8 Feb 1996	Belgium, Germany, and the United States (until 2015)
Liechtenstein	17 Sep 1972
Lithuania	19 Jul 1997
Luxembourg	3 Jun 1979
Macau	4 Feb 1969		The convention is still applicable to Macau despite the transfer of sovereignty over Macau on 20 Dec 1999.
Macedonia	17 Nov 1991
Malawi	2 Dec 1967
Malta	3 Mar 1968
Marshall Islands	14 Aug 1992
Mauritius	12 Mar 1968
Mexico	14 Aug 1995
Moldova	16 Mar 2007	Germany
Monaco	31 Dec 2002
Mongolia	31 Dec 2009	Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany and Greece
Montenegro	3 Jun 2006
Namibia	30 Jan 2001
Kingdom of the Netherlands	8 Oct 1965	Azerbaijan (until 2010), Dominican Republic, India (until 2008),	Aruba, Curaçao, Netherlands, and Sint Maarten
New Zealand	22 Nov 2001
Nicaragua	14 May 2013
Niue	2 Mar 1999
Norway	29 Jul 1983
Oman	30 Jan 2012
Panama	4 Aug 1991
Paraguay	30 Aug 2014	Germany
Peru	30 Sep 2010	Germany, Greece
Poland	14 Aug 2005
Portugal	4 Feb 1969
Romania	13 Mar 2001	Kosovo
Russia	31 May 1992
Saint Kitts and Nevis	14 Dec 1994
Saint Lucia	31 Jul 2002
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	27 Oct 1979
Samoa	13 Sep 1999
San Marino	13 Feb 1995
São Tomé and Príncipe	13 Sep 2008
Serbia	27 Apr 1992		ratified as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Seychelles	31 Mar 1979
Slovakia	18 Feb 2002
Slovenia	25 Jun 1991
South Africa	30 Apr 1995
Spain	25 Sep 1978	Albania, India (until 2008),
Suriname	25 Nov 1975
Swaziland	6 Sep 1968
Sweden	1 May 1999
Switzerland	11 Mar 1973
Tajikistan	31 Oct 2015	Austria, Belgium and Germany
Thailand	1 Nov 2002
Tonga	4 Jun 1970
Trinidad and Tobago	14 Jul 2000
Turkey	29 Sep 1985
Ukraine	22 Dec 2003	Belgium (until 2004) and Greece (until 2010)
United Kingdom	24 Jan 1965		including Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories
United States	15 Oct 1981	Liberia (until 2015)
Uruguay	14 Oct 2012
Uzbekistan	15 Apr 2012	Austria, Belgium, Germany and Greece
Vanuatu	30 Jul 1980
Venezuela	16 Mar 1999

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 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 affect 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)

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."

See also

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

External links

• treaty text (HCCH)
• status (HCCH)