Divorce Decree Recognition  between China and Foreign Countries 
 In the cases of recognition of a divorce decree produced by a foreign court, there are two situations: one situation is that this foreign country has established a reciprocal treaty for mutual legal assistance with China, in which case we can apply all of the contents of his decree to be recognized. The most common situation is that most countries do not have an established reciprocal relationship with China for mutual legal assistance in recognizing each other’s verdict. In such cases, the application for recognition of a judgment is limited to a marital relationship, other items like division of property, the assumption of credit and debt and child support issues are not recognized, the lawyer shall do some research in advance to see which ones are fully recognizable and which ones are limited to the marital relationship.
For the cases a client wants the divorce decree to be recognized by a foreign country, the lawyer needs to ask the court to produce a certificate certifying that the decree is legally valid and enforceable as it usually required by a court of a foreign country that the decree is already legally valid, the attorney representing cases involving decree recognition in abroad should require the Chinese to issue such certificate the same time when making the decree.
With respect to the situation where there is no dispute and both parties have reached a settlement agreement during the proceeding, the general practice is that the court would issue a mediation verdict. The problem with mediation verdict is that very few countries recognize such mediation verdict. It’s therefore very risky to follow the general practice. Unless the lawyer or and the client has confirmed with a foreign lawyer in the foreign country that such mediation verdict is admissible in the foreign country, it’s highly suggested that an official divorce decree shall be required from the court even both parties have agreed on everything during the mediation process. To sum up, two things are extremely necessary for a Chinese decree to be recognized in a foreign country: official decree (rather than a mediation verdict) and a certificate of its validity.