What is the Hague Convention for the Legalization of Foreign Public Documents?
The Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents ranks among the greatest successes of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, having obtained to date 87 (July 2006) ratifications and accessions on the five continents. This is owing to the fact that the Convention provides a basic simplification of the series of formalities which complicated the utilization of public documents outside of the country from which they emanated. The Convention reduces all of the formalities of legalisation to the simple delivery of a certificate in a prescribed form, entitled “apostille”, by the authorities of the State where the documents originates. It should be pointed out that the effects of the apostille are limited to attestation of the authenticity of the signature, the capacity in which the person signing the document has acted and, where appropriate, the identity of the seal or stamp which it bears. The Convention does not se
