What is the Hague Convention?

The Hague Convention, adopted in 1961, abolished the mandatory consular legalization of documents that were drawn up in the territory of a party state to the treaty for presentation to authorized bodies of other signatory states. By common consent, consular legalization is replaced by an apostille, i.e. a special stamp on the original document containing standardized information about the legitimacy of its origin. Russia joined the Hague Convention in 1992.