Inter-American Convention on Extraterritorial Validity of Foreign Judgments and Arbitral Awards
Signed in Montevideo on 8 May 1979 at the Second Inter-American Specialized Conference on Private International Law
The Governments of the Member States of the Organization of American States,
CONSIDERING that the administration of justice in the American States requires their mutual cooperation for the purpose of ensuring the extraterritorial validity of judgements and arbitral awards rendered in their respective territorial jurisdictions as follows:
Article 1
This Convention shall apply to judgments and arbitral awards rendered in civil, commercial or labor proceedings in one of the States Parties, unless at the time of ratification it makes an express reservation to limit the Convention to compensatory judgements (sentencias de condena) involving property. In addition, any one of them may declare, when ratifying the Convention, that is also applies to rulings that end proceedings, to the decisions of authorities that exercise some jurisdictional function and to judgements in penal proceedings ordering compensation for damages resulting from an offense.
The rules of this Convention shall apply to arbitral awards in all matters not covered by the Inter-American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration, signed in Panama on January 30, 1975.
Article 2
The foreign judgments, awards and decisions referred to in Article 1 shall have extraterritorial validity in the States Parties if they meet the following conditions:
a. They fulfill all the formal requirements necessary for them to be deemed authentic in the State of origin;
b. The judgment, award or decision and the documents attached thereto that are required under this Convention are duly translated into the official language of the State where they are to take effect;
c. They are presented duly legalized in accordance with the law of the State in which they are to take effect;
d. The judge or tribunal rendering the judgment is competent in the international sphere to try the matter and to pass judgment on it in accordance with the law of the State in which the judgment, award or decision is to take effect;