Abbreviation ICCS Location Strasbourg | Headquarters Secretariat General | |
Formation September 30, 1948; 68 years ago (1948-09-30) (provisional committee)
December 1949 (official recognition) Type Intergovernmental Organization Purpose international cooperation in civil status matters and further exchange of information between registrars | ||
The International Commission on Civil Status, or ICCS (French: Commission internationale de l'état civil, or CIEC), is a European intergovernmental organization and the first organization created after World War II in order to work for European integration. Provisionally established in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on September 29 and 30, 1948, it predates both the Council of Europe (planned since 1946 but officially founded only in 1949) and the European Union. Seated in Strasbourg, France, the organisation currently regroups 16 member States and 8 observer States. The official language of the Commission is French.
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Purpose
Founded in the post-war context of millions of refugees, missing persons and displaced people, the organization's aim was to facilitate the cooperation between States in establishing, recognizing, validating vital records or any other type of official documents used as birth, marriage, divorce or death certificates. It did so by providing standardized translations of vital terms in vital records and via multilateral conventions (for example the Convention on the issue of multilingual extracts from civil status records which provided for hassle free acceptance of extracts and Convention on the recognition of decisions recording a sex reassignment on legal sex status). The ICCS has signed co-operation agreements with the Council of Europe (in 1955), the Hague Conference on Private International Law (in 1969), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (in 1981) and the European Union (in 1983).
States
The official website provides a thorough list of the member and observer States of the ICCS
Founding States
Others
Austria adhered in 1961 but withdrew in 2008; Hungary adhered in 1999 but withdrew in 2012.