Achieving successful, completely legal service of process can be a tricky accomplishment. When the papers needing to be delivered must be serviced internationally, the task becomes far more complicated. In addition to the travel involved, international service of process must also blend the requirements of American law with the regulations of an overseas nation.
Three specific treaties are in place to guide process servers in their journey to deliver papers internationally, but they aren’t always clear cut.
The Hague Service Convention
The Hague Service Convention was established in 1965 to allow service of process of legal documents internationally. Not all areas of the world participate in this treaty, but all of North America, Australia, and most of Europe participate, as well as parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. With this convention, all participants must offer a central authority for accepting incoming requests for service. Any properly competent process server can request service to the international location’s central authority, who then arranges for the service in whatever manner is permitted by that specific location. It is the international location’s responsibility to provide a certificate of service to the original location.
This is ultimately the most efficient way to serve papers internationally, since it only takes two to four months, rather than six to twelve months, and it utilizes standard forms that are widely recognized.
Letters Rogatory
For countries that don’t participate in the Hague Service Convention, a letter of request called a Letters Rogatory is used to complete service within six to twelve months. This formal request asks for the state of origin to issue a judicial court order, and the foreign ruling ministry must forward the documents to the local court, which makes the final decision on service. However, many foreign governments have strict bureaucracy that creates wait periods of far longer than one year.
