Convention on Legitimation by Marriage

signed at Rome on 10 September 1970

The signatory States to this Convention, members of the International Commission on Civil Status, being desirous of furthering, by the adoption of uniform rules, the legitimation of natural children, as well as the recognition of and publicity for legitimation occurring abroad, have agreed as follows:

SECTION I

Article 1
Where, under the domestic-law provisions of the national law of the father or mother, their marriage has the effect of legitimating a natural child, such legitimation shall be valid in the Contracting States.
This rule shall apply both to legitimations resulting from the celebration of the marriage per se and to legitimations established subsequently by a judicial decision.

Article 2
However, at the time of signature, of the notification mentioned in Article 11 or of accession, any Contracting
State may reserve the right to refuse to treat the legitimation as valid:
(a) if it is established that the child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her; (b) if the marriage was celebrated in its territory and its law does not recognise the validity thereof;
(c) if one of its nationals was a party to the marriage and its law does not recognise the validity thereof; or (d) if the child was born to one of its nationals and is adulterine in relation to that person.
This right may not be exercised in cases where the domestic law of the State concerned would not prevent such legitimation.

Article 3
Recognition of the validity of a legitimation that complies with the domestic-law provisions of the national law of the father or of the mother may not be refused, even on grounds of public policy, in circumstances other than those set out in Article 2.

Article 4
Decisions pronounced in disputes ansmg under Article 2 may be invoked only in the territory of the Contracting State in which they were pronounced.

Article 5
The preceding provisions shall apply in relation to all States, even if they are not Contracting States. They shall not prevent the application of any rules in force in the Contracting States which may be more favourable to legitimation.

Article 6
Where the record of birth of the child has been drawn up or transcribed by a civil registrar of one of the Contracting States, the registrar shall make an annotation concerning the legitimation in his or her registers after verifying, or after his or her superior authority has verified, that the conditions laid down by this Convention are satisfied.
The making of such an entry may not be made conditional on any prior judicial proceedings for recognition.
The same shall apply even in cases of legitimation established after marriage by a judicial decision.

SECTION II

Article 7
Where a marriage has been celebrated in one of the Contracting States and the spouses have stated that they had a child or children in common, the record of whose birth was drawn up or transcribed in the territory of another Contracting State, the civil registrar for the place of marriage or any other competent authority shall send a notice, either directly or through diplomatic channels, to the civil registrar for the place where the record of birth was drawn up or transcribed, so that an annotation may be made concerning any legitimation resulting from the marriage. Any available supporting documents shall be attached to the notice. Where legitimation has been established after marriage by a judicial decision, the Public Prosecutor's Office or any other competent public authority shall arrange for the notice to be sent.
The notices shall be set out on a multilingual form, a model whereof is appended to this Convention. Such notices and any attached documents shall be exempted from any legalisation in the respective territories of the Contracting States.

Article 8
Extracts from the record of birth of a legitimated child shall be made out in the same way as for a legitimate child, without disclosing the legitimation.

Article 9
Application of this Section shall not be confined to nationals of the Contracting States.

SECTION III

Article 10
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "national law" ofa person shall be taken to mean the law of the State of which that person is a national or, in the case of a refugee or a stateless person, the law governing his or her personal status.
For the application of this Convention, refugees and stateless persons whose personal status is governed by the law of a particular State shall be assimilated to nationals of that State.

Article 11
The Contracting States shall notify the Swiss Federal Council of the completion of the procedures required by their Constitutions to render this Convention applicable in their territory.
The Swiss Federal Council shall inform the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of any notification made pursuant to the preceding paragraph.

Article 12
This Convention shall enter into force from the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the second notification and shall take effect from that day between the two States which have completed that formality.
For each Contracting State which completes the formality mentioned in the preceding Article at a later date, this Convention shall take effect from the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of its notification.

Article 13
Each Contracting State may, at the time of signature, notification or accession, declare that it does not undertake to apply the provisions of Section I of this Convention.
Any State which has made a declaration pursuant to the provisions of the first paragraph of this Article may subsequently declare at any time by notification to the Swiss Federal Council that it also undertakes to apply the provisions of Section I of this Convention.
The Swiss Federal Council shall inform each of the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of such notification.
The declaration mentioned in the second paragraph of this Article shall take effect from the thirtieth day following the date on which the Swiss Federal Council receives the notification.

Article 14
The reservations referred to in Article 2 may be wholly or partly withdrawn at any time. The Swiss Federal Council shall be notified of such withdrawal.
The Swiss Federal Council shall inform the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of any notification made pursuant to the preceding paragraph.

Article 15
This Convention shall apply ipso iure throughout the metropolitan territory of each Contracting State.
Any Contracting State may, at the time of signature, notification or accession or subsequently, declare by notification to the Swiss Federal Council that the provisions of this Convention shall apply to one or more of its extra-metropolitan territories or the States or territories for whose international relations it is responsible. The Swiss Federal Council shall inform each of the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of the last-mentioned notification. The provisions of this Convention shall become applicable in the territory or territories designated in the notification on the sixtieth day following the date on which the Swiss Federal Council receives the notification.
Any State which has made a declaration pursuant to the provisions of the second paragraph of this Article may subsequently declare at any time by notification to the Swiss Federal Council that this Convention shall cease to apply to one or more of the States or territories designated in the declaration.
The Swiss Federal Council shall inform each of the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of the further notification.
The Convention shall cease to apply to the territory concerned on the sixtieth day following the date on which the Swiss Federal Council receives that notification.

Article 16
Any member State of the Council of Europe or the International Commission on Civil Status may accede to this Convention. The instrument of accession shall be deposited with the Swiss Federal Council. The latter shall inform each of the Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status of every deposit of an instrument of accession. The Convention shall enter into force, for the acceding State, on the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the instrument of accession.
Deposit of an instrument of accession may take place only after the entry into force of this Convention.

Article 17
This Convention shall remain in force indefinitely. However, each Contracting State shall have the option of denouncing it at any time by written notification to the Swiss Federal Council, which shall give notice thereof to the other Contracting States and the Secretary General of the International Commission on Civil Status.
The option to denounce may not be exercised before the expiry of a period of one year from the notification mentioned in Article 11 or the accession.
Denunciation shall take effect six months after the date on which the Swiss Federal Council receives the notification mentioned in the first paragraph of this Article.
In witness whereof the undersigned representatives, duly authorised to this end, have signed this Convention. Done at Rome, on 10 September 1970, in a single copy which shall be deposited in the archives of the Swiss Federal Council and a certified copy of which shall be transmitted through diplomatic channels to each of the Contracting States and to the Secretariat General of the International Commission on Civil Status.

EXPLANATORY REPORT
adopted by the General Assembly in Rome on 9 September 1970

The purpose of this Convention is first to determine the law with which legitimation must comply in order to be valid in the Contracting States; and secondly, to specify the steps that must be taken by civil registrars as regards the recording of legitimations in their registers and the preparation of extracts from the records of birth of legitimated children.

I. SCOPE OF THE CONVENTION

A. Cases of legitimation covered by the Convention

The Convention applies only to legitimation by marriage, that is to say legitimation which - either preceded or not preceded by acknowledgment, depending on the relevant legislation - is the direct consequence of the celebration of a marriage; this includes legitimation, occurring after the celebration, which requires a judicial decision establishing merely that the legal conditions for legitimation are satisfied. In the latter eventuality, it is immaterial for purposes of the application of the Convention whether legitimation takes effect from the date of the marriage or from another date, such as that on which the decision is pronounced or transcribed. The Convention applies both to the legitimation of a living child and to the legitimation of a child who has died leaving descendants who, in some countries, might benefit therefrom.

The Convention does not extend to legitimation pronounced by administrative decision. The same applies to legitimation pronounced by judicial decision where that decision is not confined to establishing the existence of a right, but involves examination by the court of questions of appropriateness; this arises, in some States, in cases of "legitimation by adoption" or legitimation pronounced in exceptional circumstances for the benefit of orphans whose parents were not and could not be married, even posthumously.

B. Persons and States to which this Convention applies

1. Rules of substance (Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10)

Article 1 provides that legitimation shall be valid in each of the Contracting States if it occurred under the domestic-law provisions of the father's or mother's national law.

Article 10 specifies what is meant by a person's "national law", namely the law of the State of which he or she is a national or, in the case of refugees or stateless persons, the law governing their personal status (which is usually the law of their residence). Refugees and stateless persons are persons defined as such by international conventions or by the domestic law or custom of the country of asylum.

Article 5 states that the provisions of the preceding Articles, relating to the circumstances in which legitimations must be treated as valid, are applicable in respect of all States, even if they are not Contracting States. It follows from this text that henceforth the provisions of Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Convention constitute uniform rules of private international law, incorporated into the law of each of the Contracting States and applicable to any legitimation, irrespective of the nationality, domicile or place of residence of the father, the mother or the child, and wherever the child was born or the parents were married. The character of "uniform law" imparted to the rules contained in Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 puts an end to the illogical situation whereby the validity of legitimations may be governed by a variety of rules in one and the same country; it is difficult to see why the legitimation of a child having a link with one of the Contracting States should be subject to the national law of his or her father or mother, while the legitimation of a child who has no connection with any of these States might be governed by other laws, such as the law applicable to the effects of marriage, or again the law applicable to the child, which in some cases may differ from the law of one or the other parent: since a choice-of-law rule appears to be called for, it is advisable for it to be made general in scope.

In order to further legitimation as much as possible, Article 5 specifies that the provisions of the Convention shall not prevent the application of any rules in force in the Contracting States which may be more favourable to legitimation: accordingly, legitimations that are valid under the domestic law or private international law of the State where they are invoked will continue to be accepted in that State, even if they do not fulfil the conditions for validity laid down by the father's and mother's national laws. Thus, where a State's law provides that the conditions for legitimation are governed by the law of the common place of residence of the parents and, in casu, that law accepts the legitimation, it will be regarded as valid, even if it is accepted neither by the father's nor by the mother's law.


2. Rules of form (Articles 6, 7, 8 and 9)

These provisions of a technical character have, by their very nature, a more limited scope than the rules of substance. Article 6, which requires civil registrars to make an annotation concerning the legitimation in their registers, presupposes that two conditions are fulfilled: that the registrar is an official of a Contracting State and that the record against which the marginal annotation is to be made was drawn up or transcribed by him or her. Article 7, relating to the sending of notices to enable annotations to be made, applies only !f the record of the parents' marriage and the record of the child's birth were drawn up or transcribed in two different Contracting States. Article 8, relating to the contents of extracts from the record of birth of a legitimated child, is binding only on custodians of records peifonning their duties in the Contracting States.

II. CHOICE-OF-LAW RULES LAID DOWN BY THE CONVENTION

A. The principle (Article 1)

Since the Convention is designed to further the validity of legitimations, a liberal rule was laid down with that aim in view: for a legitimation to be valid, it suffices that it occurred under the national law of at least one of the parents of the child. The national law of one of the parents was preferred to the law governing the effects of the marriage, since it is sometimes difficult on the facts to determine that law; and it seemed pointless to add a third option, i.e. the child's national law, as there are so few cases where the child's personal status differs from both the father's and the mother's.

By referring to "the domestic-law provisions of the national law", the text of Article 1 excludes the application of rules of private international law. This avoids a reference back to a single domestic law, which could be unfavourable to legitimation: it is not uncommon for the law of one of the parents (the domestic provisions of which, let us assume, allow legitimation) to refer the matter back to the domestic law of the other parent (which prohibits it).
Reviewing the validity of a legitimation may entail reviewing first of all the validity of acknowledgments of paternity and maternity (when these are required) and the validity (or at any rate the putative character) of the parents' marriage. It can be inferred from Article 1 of the Convention that these questions too are governed by the father's or mother's national law ; it is thus sufficient that under that law the marriage and the filiation meet the conditions required for them to serve as a basis for a valid legitimation. However, because they see these as being preliminary questions, some people may be led to take into consideration national law in the broad sense, that is to say including the rules of private international law. At all events the object of the Convention is to apply national law in the sense most favourable to legitimation.

It should be remembered that in those countries where acknowledgments, either before or at the time of the marriage, are obligatory for the purposes of legitimation, this requirement constitutes a substantive condition for legitimation. A child would therefore not be legitimated, within the meaning of the Convention, in the absence of such acknowledgments if they were required by both the father's and the mother's national laws. On the other hand, a legitimation would be valid even without express acknowledgments if the father's or the mother's national law imposed no such condition.

The Convention does not contain any particular provision for resolving conflicts relating to formal conditions and the effects of legitimation: the ordinary law will apply. Thus, countries which have recourse to an "instrument of legitimation" will continue to draw it up, according to the '1ex loci actus"; similarly, the record of legitimation in the civil status registers for the place of birth will be made according to local practice, that is by transcribing the instrument of legitimation (if any), by a simple marginal annotation on the record of birth, or by transcription and annotation.

B. Limitations (Articles 2,3 and 4)

The extremely liberal option offered by Article 1 had to be counterbalanced in some way, and this is done in Article 2.

This provision allows the Contracting States to reserve "the right to refUse to treat the legitimation as valid" in one or more of the four cases listed in the Article, if their domestic law prohibits legitimation in the case envisaged. The significance of this fonnulation should be explained in detail:

• If the State concerned makes no reservation, its internal authorities (courts, administrative officials, civil registrars, etc.) must recognise legitimations which fulfil the conditions laid down in Article 1, with no other requirement. In such a State, for example, recognition of the legitimation of an adulterine child may not be refused, even on grounds of public policy, if it is valid under the father's or the mother's national law.
• If the State makes one or more reservations, it will not follow that legitimations covered by those reservations must inevitably be rejected out of hand: the text does not say that States may declare that they will not recognise legitimations covered by their reservations, but merely gives them the option of reserving the right not to recognise them.

The cases in which reservations may be made are limited to four:

(a) The child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her.

Some States allow the legitimation of children who are not, biologically speaking, the offspring of the persons who have legitimated them. If the domestic law of a State does not allow such legitimations, recognition of their validity in that State may be refused, even though they fulfil the conditions laid down in Article 1. The question whether the child is or is not in fact the offspring of the persons who have legitimated him or her will be examined and decided according to the domestic law of the State concerned.

(b)The marriage of the parents, whatever their nationality, has been celebrated in the State where the legitimation is invoked, but is null or non-existent in that State.

In some Contracting States, the annulment of a marriage does not affect the validity of a legitimation resulting from the marriage, even when the two spouses were in bad faith; in others, the "legitimating effect" of the marriage subsists only if at least one of the spouses was in good faith. It was thought necessary to allow the latter States not to recognise a legitimation which has been wiped out on account of the annulment of the marriage, even though, under the father's or the mother's national law, such legitimation would remain in being. The same applies when the marriage is deemed to be void ipso iure or non-existent under the law of the country where it was contracted.

(c) The marriage of the parents, at least one of whom is a national of the State in which the legitimation is invoked, is null or non-existent in that State.

If, according to the law of the State concerned, nullity or non-existence of the marriage entails nullity or non-existence of the legitimation, it may, as in the preceding case, be refused recognition by that State even though it subsists under the father's or the mother's law.
Unlike the situation envisaged in paragraph (b), at least one of the parents must be a national of the State in question; since the null marriage was celebrated abroad, there is a less direct public-policy interest in the nullity of the marriage entailing nullity of the legitimation; in this case, for the contravention of public policy to be sufficiently serious, the union must involve nationals or at least one national.

(d) The child is adulterine in relation to at least one of his or her parents and that parent is a national of the State in which the legitimation is invoked.

The laws of the individual Contracting States are not equally liberal as regards the possibility of legitimating adulterine children. A legitimation that is valid under the father's or the mother's law may therefore be declared non-existent in the Contracting State where it is invoked and which has made this reservation, subject however to the twofold condition (apart from the general condition that the domestic law of that State must prohibit legitimation in the case envisaged):

• that at least one of the child's parents must be a national of that State (it would not suffice for the parent to be a national of another State which itself prohibited the legitimation);
• that the child must be adulterine in relation to that same parent (thus the legitimation of a child adulterine "a matre" could not be refused recognition on the ground that domestic law, in the legal situation in question, prohibits such legitimation, if the adulterous mother is not a national of the State concerned, even though the father is).

In order to ensure the effective application of the Convention and to prevent any extensive interpretation of the concept of public policy, Article 3 specifies that recognition of the validity of a legitimation that complies with the provisions of Article 1 may not be refused, "even on grounds of public policy", in circumstances other than those listed in Article 2.

The question whether a legitimation will or will not be accepted in a particular State may arise in the first place during judicial proceedings for a declaration of validity or nullity of the legitimation. However, the question may also arise in the course of a dispute occurring outside any legal proceedings: thus, when a civil registrar who has been asked to make an annotation concerning the legitimation considers that it is manifestly irregular, he or she may refuse to accede to the request, without being obliged to institute court proceedings. Whether it is judicial or extra-judicial, a dispute can, of course, be initiated only if the legitimation does not fulfil the conditions laid down in Article 1 or if the case at issue is one provided for in Article 2 and covered by the "reservation ".

Finally, it should be pointed out that, under Article 4 of the Convention, "decisions pronounced in disputes arising under Article 2" have only a limited scope, since they "may be invoked only in the territory of the Contracting State in which they were pronounced". This provision is a departure from the customary rule whereby States may recognise decisions pronounced abroad either ipso iure or after proceedings for recognition or a declaration of enforceability. Such a departure militates in favour of the effectiveness of legitimations; it conforms to the spirit of the Convention, which seeks to ensure that in principle legitimations satisfying the requirements of the law specified in Article 1 will be recognised in the Contracting States.

III. TECHNICAL PROVISIONS OF THE CONVENTION: RULES TO BE OBSERVED BY CIVIL REGISTRARS

A. Making of entries concerning legitimations in Registers of Civil Status (Article 6)

Article 6 states very clearly that in no case may the making of an entry be made conditional on any judicial proceedings for "recognition" of the legitimation (still less on any decision authorising enforcement). Legitimation is not brought about by a judgment, nor by an administrative decision equivalent to a judgment, but simply by the marriage of the parents of a natural child. Even in a case of a legitimation "post nuptias", the judgment then given does not bring about legitimation but is confined to establishing its existence by verifying that it fulfils the legal conditions. In that case, no "recognition" of the judgment can ther(!fore be required before the entry concerning the legitimation is made. It should be pointed out that if a civil registrar should refuse to make an annotation concerning a legitimation the validity of which he or she disputes - for a reason to be specified by him or her -, it would be open to the parties concerned to bring an action against the registrar in the competent court, which would then decide whether or not the legitimation should be held valid and entered in the registers.

A legitimation fulfilling the conditions laid down in Article 1 must (subject to Article 2) be the subject of an entry in the civil status registers for the place where the record of the child's birth was made or transcribed. In the majority of Contracting States, the entry will be made by means of a marginal annotation concerning the legitimation on the record of birth; in others, by transcription of an "instrument of legitimation"; transcription and marginal annotation may also be combined. At all events the Convention is not intended to make any change in the formalities to be observed, which remain governed by the '1ex loci actus".

The procedure for making the entry will vary according to the extent of the powers vested in civil registrars by the member States.

In States where civil registrars make entries on their own authority, they must themselves verify that the legitimation fulfils the conditions laid down in Article 1 and is not precluded by virtue of the reservations provided for in Article 2. In most cases, such verification will present no problem (especially when one of the parents is a national of the State in which the entry concerning legitimation is to be made and the domestic law of that State allows such legitimation). If civil registrars are not sure whether the legitimation is valid, they will refer to their supervisory authority (public prosecutor's department, judge dealing with matters of guardianship, federal authority, etc.). That authority will be in a position to verify - for example, by consulting the ICCS documentation card-index - whether or not the legitimation fulfils the conditions laid down by the Convention; if necessary (but only in exceptional cases), a certificate setting out the legal position could be demanded.

In other member States, prior verification will be effected by an authority other than the civil registrar; in that case the latter will merely make the actual entry. Under the rules of internal procedure, such verification will be the responsibility of a judicial or administrative authority. Its decision will not constitute proceedings for recognition within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 6, because the authority will be verifying nothing more than registrars themselves verify when acting on their own authority.

B. Notices to enable annotations to be made (Article 7)

In order to make the Convention more effective in practice, Article 7 provides that if the parents' marriage has been celebrated and the child's birth registered in different Contracting States, the civil registrar for the place of marriage (or any other competent local authority) must as a matter of course send a notice to the civil registrar for the place where the record of birth was made or transcribed, so that an annotation concerning the legitimation may be made.
If the record of birth has been made in one place and transcribed in another, the notice should be sent to both offices.

Article 7 concerns both local and consular civil registration: if the marriage was celebrated at a consulate, the notice in question will be sent by the consul.

The Commission was faced with the question whether the civil registrar who celebrated the marriage should, before sending the notice, verify that the conditions for legitimation were fulfilled. In order to obviate a double check - one on departure and one on arrival -, it was decided that the verification would be made only by the registrar for the place where the record of birth was made or transcribed. After all, it is there that the child's legitimation will be given concrete expression, by an annotation amending the particulars in the record of his or her birth (Articles 5 and 6 taken in conjunction). For the notice to be sent, it will therefore suffice that the spouses (at the request, where appropriate, of the civil registrar) declare at the time of the marriage that they have a child or children in common, the record of whose birth was made or transcribed in another Contracting State.

The notices are normally to be sent directly from one civil registrar (or other competent authority) to another by post or, where appropriate, through diplomatic channels.

The notices are to be set out uniformly on a multilingual form, a model of which is appended to the Convention; in order to avoid the need for two forms, it seemed simpler to use the one multilingual form, even where the same language is spoken in both the sending country and the receiving country. Any Contracting State may add on the forms languages other than those of the member States of the ICCS.

In order to make it easier to check the validity of the legitimation, the civil registrar sending the notice must attach "any available supporting documents". This means an extract from the record of marriage and documents attached thereto (extracts from the record of birth of the spouses, any declarations of acknowledgment of the child, certificates of nationality, certificates setting out the legal position, where necessary). These documents need not be translated, but it would be desirable for extracts from birth and marriage records to be made out on multilingual forms, in accordance with the Convention of 27 September 1956 between various member States of the International Commission on Civil Status. These documents may be sent in the form of certified copies or photocopies, if the registrar is not allowed to part with the originals.

C. Wording of extracts from the Records of Birth of legitimated children (Article 8)

In many Contracting States, one can obtain either verbatim copies of records of births or extracts therefrom. The former are usually issued to certain persons only (children or near relatives, judicial authorities, etc.) or on authorisation; the latter (giving varying amounts of information and generally not indicating the nature of the filiation) are in principle issued to any interested person. This is because it is not desirable for third parties to be able to discover from verbatim copies of the records that the child was born out of wedlock. The Convention leaves it to the domestic law of each State to decide who is entitled to obtain verbatim copies.
The Convention takes account of this distinction as regards the issue of copies of and extracts from the record of birth of a legitimated child: extracts, unlike verbatim copies, must be made out as if they related to a legitimate child (''X ….. the child of Y and his wife Z" and not ''X … the child of Y and Z, who legitimated him/her'').

Declarations of reservation

The Federal Republic of Germany declares, pursuant to Article 2, letters (a) and (b)*, that it reserves the right to refuse to treat the legitimation as valid:
(a) if it is established that the child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her, but only where the absence of such a relationship is established either by a German judicial decision or by a foreign judicial decision which can be recognised in Germany;
(b)* if, under German law, the marriage of the German national is non-existent. (* Editorial note: For (b) read (c).)

The Republic of Austria declares, pursuant to Article 2, that it reserves the right to refuse to treat the legitimation as valid:
(a) ifit is established that the child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her; (b) if the marriage was celebrated on Austrian territory and Austrian law does not recognise the validity thereof;
(c) if an Austrian national was a party to the marriage and Austrian law does not recognise the validity thereof*.
(* Editorial note : text of the reservation as formulated at the time of notification of ratification of the Convention.)

When depositing the instrument of ratification of the Convention, the Hellenic Republic confirmed the reservations formulated at the time of signature and referred to in Article 2, letters (a), (b) and (c) of the Convention.

The Italian Republic declares, pursuant to Article 13, that it does not undertake to apply the provisions of Section I of this Convention.

When depositing the instrument of ratification on behalf of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the whole Kingdom), the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands made the reservation that, pursuant to Article 2, letters (b) and (c), a legitimation complying with the domestic-law provisions of the national law of the father or mother will nevertheless not be treated as valid in the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles if one of the parties to the marriage having the effect of legitimation is a Netherlands national and if, in the relevant territory of the Kingdom, that marriage was not celebrated before a civil registrar, or if, in a foreign country, that marriage was not celebrated in accordance with the law of that country.

The Swiss Confederation declares, in pursuance of Article 2, that it reserves the right to refuse to treat the legitimation as valid:
(a) if it is established that the child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her; (b) if the marriage was celebrated on Swiss territory and Swiss law does not recognise the validity thereof; (c) if a Swiss national was a party to the marriage and Swiss law does not recognise the validity thereof.
At the time of notification of ratification of the Convention, the Turkish Republic declared, pursuant to Article 2, letters (a), (b) and( c), that it reserved the right to refuse to treat the legitimation as valid:
(a) ifit is established that the child is not in fact the child of the persons who have legitimated him or her; (b) if the marriage was celebrated on Turkish territory and Turkish law does not recognise the validity thereof;
(c) if a Turkish national was a party to the marriage and Turkish law does not recognise the validity thereof.