About 

• The Hague Service Convention—formally known as the Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, 1965, was adopted at the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 1965. 
• Building on the 1905 and 1954 Hague Conventions on Civil Procedure, this multilateral treaty’s primary objective is to streamline and standardize the process of serving judicial and extrajudicial documents across international borders in civil or commercial matters.
  • The Convention aims to expedite the process of serving legal documents (e.g., summons, complaints, judgments) from one country to another, ensuring that parties in international disputes receive proper notice of legal actions.

• By establishing clear rules for service of documents, the Convention helps safeguard the rights of defendants or recipients, ensuring they are properly informed of legal proceedings against them. 
• Each member state designates a Central Authority responsible for receiving and processing requests for service of documents. 

Parties:

• 84 states, including India, are parties to the Convention. 
  • The Convention’s procedures apply only when both the sending and receiving countries are signatories.