I’m seeing a bit of confusion re legalization vs apostille. Hope this helps:
Legalization, in this context, is the process by which a document from a foreign or private entity becomes acceptable for use here.
As regards a foreign document presented for trámites in Argentina, that is normally done by the Argentine consular post with jurisdiction where the document was issued. E.g. if the document is from Canada, it must be legalized by the Argentine consulate in Toronto or Montreal, depending on what province issued the document. Quebec/Atlantic provinces: Montreal. Ontario/prairies/BC: Toronto.
(These consulates, in turn, require that the document be authenticated by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa before they will legalize it.) The idea is simple: rather than require every government agency to be familiar with every kind of document used in the world, delegate this to the consulate in that place, everyone else need only be familiar with the legalization stamp.
The apostille
supersedes the legalization requirement, IOW it allows a document to be accepted
without legalization. The convention which established the process is literally called the “Hague Convention
Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents”. Under this process, each signatory country nominates officers whose signatures are then recognized by all other signatory countries.
I.e. if both countries (the issuer and the destination) are signatories to The Hague Convention, then a document apostilled by the issuing country is accepted
without requiring further legalization. The reason I cited Canada above is because it is
not a signatory to this convention, as such any Canadian documents used here must be legalized by the Argentine government (again, via its Canadian consulates) prior to their use here.
Some countries will allow you to apply for apostilling their documents via their consulates, but most do not. If you have a US document requiring an apostille, for example, this must be done stateside (in the state that issued the document, or by the State Department if it was issued by the federal government).
What confuses people is that the Apostille
supersedes the legalization requirement; it does not
preclude it. If the Argentine government, for example, decides it will legalize documents issued by the US Embassy here, it is of course free to do so, and that document is then valid for use here, without needing to send that document to Washington to have the State Department apostille it.
It is but natural that some people here get confused by all this, and assume “the US apostilles its documents, ergo no legalization of US documents is done here”. That is why
@artisans was wise to bring the sample showing that this can be done, and indeed is done.
