Courts may serve documents only to individuals within the court‘s jurisdiction. One exception to this rule is states that invoke universal jurisdiction, granting their courts ubiquitous domain. Therefore a person seeking to take an action against a person in another country will need to seek assistance from the judicial authorities in the other country. This is of course assuming the court in his own country has jurisdiction to hear the case matter. As a hypothetical example, Alice in the United States wishes to sue Roberto in Argentina. Alice issues her summons in a U.S. court, and must then petition a court in Argentina by means of a Letter Rogatory to serve the process on Roberto.
The use of Letters Rogatory for purposes of service of process to initiate court action is now largely confined to the Americas. As between countries in Europe, Asia, and North America, service of process is effected without resort to Letters Rogatory, under the provisions of theHague Service Convention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_rogatory
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