In December 2022, Congress enacted sweeping transparency reforms for executive agreements, which took effect in September 2023. In this post, we assess how well this new transparency system is working based on publicly available information. As we will explain, the law has led to substantially more transparency for these agreements, as Congress had intended. In at least one respect, however, the executive branch’s compliance raises questions for Congress to consider, and there are other aspects of the new transparency regime that could be improved. As Congress knew when it enacted the law, more work remains to be done. 

Case-Zablocki Act

Since World War II, the vast majority of international agreements concluded by the United States have been done as “executive agreements” rather than as Senate-approved treaties. Many of these executive agreements are authorized or approved by statutes (“congressional-executive agreements”), but others are concluded based on authority conferred by treaties (“treaty-based executive agreements”) or on the President’s independent constitutional authority (“sole executive agreements”).

The Case-Zablocki Act, first enacted in 1972, requires that the State Department report these various executive agreements to Congress. Until recently, the Act required reporting within 60 days after the agreements took effect. Another related statute has long required publication of the agreements on a State Department website within 180 days after they took effect.

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