Conventions on child abduction, adoption and the Apostille: the Hague Conference and its Permanent Bureau since 1893

Background

Which country's court may hear a case, which law applies to it, and whether a judgment can cross a border are the questions worked on by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, shortened to HCCH. Since 1893 it has pursued what Article 1 of its Statute calls the progressive unification of the rules of private international law. Its secretariat is the Permanent Bureau, which services the Conventions the Conference develops. Those Conventions are grouped by subject, one group covering the international protection of children, family and property relations, another covering international legal co-operation and litigation. In the first group sit child abduction, intercountry adoption and parentage, with international child support, the protection of adults, relations between former spouses, and wills, trusts and estates beside them. The second takes in legal and administrative co-operation, where the Apostille, Service and Evidence work sits, and the jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments, which holds the choice of court section and the Judgments Projects. An apostille is a single certificate by which a public document from one country is shown to be genuine in another. New multilateral instruments are developed by the Conference, which also refreshes Conventions and guidance already in place. Its reach runs past its own membership: it helps States apply the Conventions and presses for wider accession among member and non-member states.