Additional Protocol to the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory

Deposit of instrument of accession: January 11, 1990, with declaration.* Promulgatory Decree: No. 858, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Publication in the Official Gazette: February 12, 1990. The Governments of the Member States of the Organization of American States, desiring to strengthen and facilitate international cooperation in matters of judicial procedures in accordance with the provisions of the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory signed in Panama on January 30, 1975, have agreed as follows: I. SCOPE OF THE PROTOCOL

This Protocol shall apply exclusively to those procedural acts set forth in Article 2(a) of the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory, hereinafter called "the Convention," which shall be understood, solely for the purposes of this Protocol, as the communication of acts or facts of a procedural nature or requests for information by judicial organs of one State Party to those of another, when such acts are the subject of a letter rogatory transmitted by the central authority of the requesting State to the central authority of the requested State. II. CENTRAL AUTHORITY

Each State Party shall designate the central authority that shall perform the functions assigned to it in the Convention and in this Protocol. The States Parties, upon depositing the instrument of ratification or accession to the Protocol, shall communicate such designation to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, which shall distribute among the States Parties to the Convention a list containing the designations it has received. The central authority designated by each State Party, in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention, may be changed at any time, the State Party being required to notify said Secretariat of the change at the earliest possible time. III. PREPARATION OF LETTERS ROGATORY

Letters rogatory shall be prepared on forms printed in the four official languages of the Organization of American States or in the languages of the requesting and requested States, according to Form A of the Annex to this Protocol. Letters rogatory shall be accompanied by:

• a)

  A copy of the complaint or petition with which the proceeding in which the letter rogatory is issued is initiated, as well as its translation into the language of the requested State Party;

• b)

  An untranslated copy of the documents attached to the complaint or petition;

• c)

  An untranslated copy of the court decisions ordering the issuance of the letter rogatory;

• d)

  A form prepared according to text B of the Annex to this Protocol, containing essential information for the person or authority to whom the documents are to be delivered or transmitted, and e. A form prepared according to text C of the Annex to this Protocol in which the central authority shall certify whether or not the letter rogatory was fulfilled. The copies shall be considered authenticated, for the purposes of Article 8(a) of the Convention, when they bear the seal of the judicial organ issuing the letter rogatory. A copy of the letter rogatory accompanied by Form B, as well as the copies referred to in subsections a), b), and c) of this article, shall be delivered to the person notified or transmitted to the authority to which the request is directed. One of the copies of the letter rogatory with its annexes shall remain in the possession of the requested State; and the untranslated original, as well as the certificate of fulfillment with its respective annexes, shall be returned to the requesting central authority through appropriate channels. If a State Party has more than one official language, it shall declare, at the time of signature, ratification, or accession to this Protocol, which language or languages it considers official for the purposes of the Convention and of this Protocol. If a State Party comprises territorial units with different languages, it shall declare, at the time of signature, ratification, or accession to this Protocol, which language or languages shall be considered official in each territorial unit for the purposes of the Convention and of this Protocol. The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States shall distribute among the States Parties to this Protocol the information contained in such declarations. IV. TRANSMISSION AND FULFILLMENT OF THE LETTER ROGATORY

When the central authority of one State Party receives a letter rogatory from the central authority of another State Party, it shall transmit it to the competent judicial organ for fulfillment, in accordance with applicable internal law. Once the letter rogatory has been fulfilled, the judicial organ or organs that have fulfilled it shall make a record of its fulfillment in the manner provided by its internal law, and shall send it to its central authority with the pertinent documents. The central authority of the requested State Party shall certify the fulfillment of the letter rogatory to the central authority of the requesting State Party according to Form C of the Annex, which shall not require legalization. Likewise, the requested central authority shall send the corresponding documentation to the requesting authority so that it may send it together with the letter rogatory to the judicial organ that issued it. V. COSTS AND EXPENSES

The fulfillment of the letter rogatory by the central authority and the judicial organs of the requested State Party shall be free of charge. This State, however, may claim from the interested parties payment for those acts which, in accordance with its internal law, must be directly paid by them. The interested party in the fulfillment of a letter rogatory shall, as it prefers, indicate in it the person who will be responsible for the costs corresponding to such acts in the requested State Party, or attach to the letter rogatory a check for the amount fixed, in accordance with the provisions of Article 6 of this Protocol, for processing by the requested State Party, to cover the cost of such acts, or the document that proves that such sum has already been made available to the central authority of that State by any other means. The circumstance that the cost of the acts performed ultimately exceeds the fixed amount shall not delay or prevent the fulfillment and execution of the letter rogatory by the central authority and the judicial organs of the requested State Party. In the event that it exceeds such amount, upon returning the fulfilled letter rogatory, the central authority of that State may request that the interested party complete the payment.

Upon depositing with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States the instrument of ratification or accession to this Protocol, each State Party shall submit a report indicating which acts, according to its internal law, must be directly paid for by the interested parties, with specification of the respective costs and expenses. Likewise, each State Party shall indicate in the aforementioned report the single amount that in its judgment reasonably covers the cost of those acts, whatever their number or nature. This amount shall apply when the interested party does not designate a person responsible for paying those acts in the requested State, but instead chooses to pay them directly in the manner indicated in Article 5 of this Protocol. The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States shall distribute among the States Parties to this Protocol the information received. The States Parties may, at any time, communicate to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States modifications to the aforementioned reports, and it shall inform the other States Parties to this Protocol of such modifications.

In the report mentioned in the preceding article, the States Parties may declare that, provided reciprocity is accepted, they shall not charge the interested parties the costs and expenses of the proceedings necessary for the fulfillment of letters rogatory, or shall accept as full payment thereof the single amount referred to in Article 6 or another determined amount.

This Protocol shall be open for signature and subject to ratification or accession by the Member States of the Organization of American States that have signed the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory signed in Panama on January 30, 1975, or that ratify or accede to it. This Protocol shall remain open for accession by any other State that has acceded or accedes to the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory, under the conditions indicated in this article. The instruments of ratification and accession shall be deposited with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States.

This Protocol shall enter into force on the thirtieth day following the date on which two States Parties to the Convention have deposited their instruments of ratification or accession to the Protocol. For each State that ratifies or accedes to the Protocol after its entry into force, the Protocol shall enter into force on the thirtieth day following the date on which such State has deposited its instrument of ratification or accession, provided that such State is a Party to the Convention.

States Parties that have two or more territorial units in which different legal systems apply regarding matters dealt with in this Protocol may declare, at the time of signature, ratification, or accession, that the Protocol shall apply to all their territorial units or only to one or more of them. Such declarations may be modified by subsequent declarations, which shall expressly specify the territorial unit or units to which this Protocol shall apply. Such subsequent declarations shall be transmitted to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States and shall take effect thirty days after receipt.

This Protocol shall govern indefinitely, but any of the States Parties may denounce it. The instrument of denunciation shall be deposited with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States. One year after the date of deposit of the instrument of denunciation, the Protocol shall cease to have effect for the denouncing State, remaining in effect for the other States Parties.

The original instrument of this Protocol and its Annex (Forms A, B, and C), whose texts in Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, which shall send an authenticated copy of its text for registration and publication to the Secretariat of the United Nations, in accordance with Article 102 of its Charter. The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States shall notify the Member States of that Organization and the States that have acceded to the Protocol of the signatures, deposits of instruments of ratification, accession, and denunciation, as well as any reservations that may exist. It shall also transmit to them the information referred to in Articles 2, 3 (final paragraph), and 6, as well as the declarations provided for in Article 10 of this Protocol. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned plenipotentiaries, duly authorized by their respective Governments, sign this Protocol. DONE IN THE CITY OF MONTEVIDEO, Oriental Republic of Uruguay, on the eighth day of May of nineteen hundred and seventy-nine.