
1 
This Order may be cited as the Adoption (Designation of Overseas Adoptions) Order 1973 and shall come into operation on 1st February 1973.
2 
The Interpretation Act 1889 shall apply to the interpretation of this Order as it applies to the interpretation of an Act of Parliament.
3 

(1) An adoption of an infant is hereby specified as an overseas adoption if it is an adoption effected in a place in relation to which this Article applies and under the law in force in that place.
(2) As respects any adoption effected before the date on which this Order comes into operation, this Article applies in relation to any place which, at that date, forms part of a country or territory described in Part I or II of the Schedule to this Order and as respects any adoption effected on or after that date, this Article applies in relation to any place which, at the time the adoption is effected, forms part of a country or territory which at that time is a country or territory described in Part I or II of the Schedule to this Order.
(3) In this Article the expression—
 “infant” means a person who at the time when the application for adoption was made had not attained the age of 18 years and had not been married;
 “law” does not include customary or common law.
4 

(1) Evidence that an overseas adoption has been effected may be given by the production of a document purporting to be—
(a) a certified copy of an entry made, in accordance with the law of the country or territory concerned, in a public register relating to the recording of adoptions and showing that the adoption has been effected; or
(b) a certificate that the adoption has been effected, signed or purporting to be signed by a person authorised by the law of the country or territory concerned to sign such a certificate, or a certified copy of such certificate.
(2) Where a document produced by virtue of paragraph (1) of this Article is not in English, the Registrar General or the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Scotland, as the case may be, may require the production of an English translation of the document before satisfying himself of the matters specified in section 8 of the Adoption Act 1968.
(3) Nothing in this Article shall be construed as precluding proof, in accordance with the Evidence (Foreign, Dominion and Colonial Documents) Act 1933, or the Oaths and Evidence (Overseas Authorities and Countries) Act 1963 or otherwise, that an overseas adoption has been effected.
Robert Carr
One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State
Home Office
Whitehall
1st January 1973
SCHEDULE
PART I

 Australia
 Bahamas
 Barbados
 Bermuda
 Botswana
 British Honduras
 British Virgin Islands
 Canada
 Cayman Islands
 The Republic of Cyprus
 Dominica
 Fiji
 Ghana
 Gibraltar
 Guyana
 Hong Kong
 Jamaica
 Kenya
 Lesotho
 Malawi
 Malaysia
 Malta
 Mauritius
 Montserrat
 New Zealand
 Nigeria
 Pitcairn
 St. Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla
 St. Vincent
 Seychelles
 Singapore
 Southern Rhodesia
 Sri Lanka
 Swaziland
 Tanzania
 Tonga
 Trinidad and Tobago
 Uganda
 Zambia

PART II

 Austria
 Belgium
 Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroes)
 Finland
 France (including Réunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guyana)
 The Federal Republic of Germany and Land Berlin (West Berlin)
 Greece
 Iceland
 The Republic of Ireland
 Israel
 Italy
 Luxembourg
 The Netherlands (including Surinam and the Antilles)
 Norway
 Portugal (including the Azores and Madeira)
 South Africa and South West Africa
 Spain (including the Balcarics and the Canary Islands)
 Sweden
 Switzerland
 Turkey
 The United States of America
 Yugoslavia
