§ 1714.Definitions

Before this chapter's recognition rules can apply, the reader has to know exactly which governments count as a “foreign country” for this purpose. This section excludes the obvious candidates: the United States itself, any state, district, commonwealth, territory, or insular possession of the United States, and any federally recognized Indian nation, tribe, pueblo, band, or Alaska Native village. It also excludes any other government whose judgments California would recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution rather than under this chapter's separate standards.

Everything else is a foreign country for this chapter's purposes, and a “foreign-country judgment” is a judgment rendered by a court of one of those governments. That definition sets up the rest of the chapter, since the recognition standards in the sections that follow apply only to judgments meeting this description, not to judgments from other U.S. states, territories, or tribal courts, which are governed by other chapters of this same title.