Commonwealth and Hague Apostille Convention

What is the Hague Apostille Convention?

The Apostille Convention, or the Apostille Treaty, is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The Hague Convention is a treaty that was passed in order to abolish the necessity for the authentication of documents and promote liberalization. Due to the introduction of the Hague Convention, barriers in trading and other areas have been reduced and there is better accessibility through the nations.

The Hague Convention Abolished the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents.

The main benefit of being participating country in Hague Convention is that When one obtains an apostille on documents once, there is no need for the same documents again for another signatory country.

Hague Apostille Members

Below are the countries that are participants of the Apostille Convention (Hague Treaty Convention 12) and the convention is in force with the United States of America.

Note: that the participant countries are in bold letters while those in Italics are not the members of the Hague Apostille Convention.

What is the Commonwealth?

The Commonwealth is an association of countries across the world. Although historically connected to the British Empire, any country can apply to be a member of the Commonwealth, regardless of its intersection with Britain’s colonial past. The Commonwealth consists of 54 countries, including India.

These are 54 countries in the Commonwealth, in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific. Commonwealth countries are diverse – they are amongst the world’s biggest, smallest, richest and poorest countries.

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