In November 2016 I noted the Conclusions and Recommendations of the 2016 Special Commission on the operation of the Apostille Convention, which pointed out the possibility of improving the status tables on the Hague Conference website. At the time, the status tables, at least for the Service, Evidence, and Apostille Conventions, did not show a complete alphabetical list of the states party to the Conventions. Instead, they showed one list that included those states that were Hague Conference members, and another list that included those states that were parties to the Convention but not members of the Hague Conference. This created possibilities for confusion.

I’m very pleased to see that the Hague Conference has updated its website to fix this problem. The new tables still distinguish Hague Conference member states from non-member states, but typographically rather than by putting them on different lists. The result is an improved status table that has retained all the information in the old table but that is much easier to use.