Apostille is a French word which means a certification. It is commonly used in English to refer to the legalisation of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. A document which has been certified with a conformant apostille is accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention. It is comparable to a notarisation in Common Law.