A Central Authority is an agency or organization that is designated to play a key facilitating role in the implementation and operation of an international treaty in public and

private international law Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a case, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction. This body of law deals with three broad t ...

. Prior to the

Hague Evidence Convention The Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters—more commonly referred to as the Hague Evidence Convention—is a multilateral treaty which was drafted under the auspices of the Hague Conference on Private Internat ...

and the

Hague Service Convention The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, more commonly called the Hague Service Convention, is a multilateral treaty that was adopted in The Hague, The Netherlands, on 15 Nove ...

's of 1965 and 1970, most treaties would designate two separate agencies to, respectively, transmit and receive treaty petitions and applications with their corresponding agencies in foreign states. The Conventions of '65 and '70 consolidated these roles into a single ''Central Authority.'' Future Conventions, such as

Hague Abduction Convention The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted by a parent from one member countr ...

also demanded that the Central Authority in each country handle two-way communications with domestic courts, administrative agencies and foreign Central Authorities. Not only did the Abduction Convention establish Central Authorities that facilitated two way communications, but it also gave a whole laundry list of additional obligations to these new authorities with language requiring Central Authorities to take "any and all actions" to secure the goals of the treaty and cooperate with other Central Authority's to do the same. All of these new obligations emphasized the need for international cooperation amongst the state parties in achieving the objectives of the Convention. In transnational criminal law, Central Authorities act as international nodes of coordination to receive and act upon mutual legal assistance and extradition requests from other countries. Many UN treaties, such as the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) expressly call upon member states to designate Central Authorities in their government for just this purpose. The lack of Central Authorities in developing countries, however, can pose challenges as, where such institutional architecture is lacking, states will generally be unable to offer assistance and, thus, unable to address many of the threats posed by transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations.

References

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External links

Hague Conference on Private International Law Countering Convergence: “Central Authorities” and the Global Network to Combat Transnational Crime and Terrorism
International law