About Treaties
Article II Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution gives the president the power "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur." Article VI states that the Constitution and "the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."
Since the 97th Congress, treaties have been identified by a hyphenated number – the first number referring to the Congress in which the treaty was submitted and the second a sequence number. Thus, Treaty 107-1 refers to the first treaty sent to the 107th Congress. Before the 97th, there was a more elaborate form of identification, which must be converted to the new method in order to search for it in this database. View the conversion table.
This database covers treaty information from the 94th Congress to the present. Treaty information is also available from the 90th to the 94th. Information is available for just a few treaties from the 81st through the 89th Congresses.
Update Frequency
New information is added throughout the day by the executive clerk of the Senate. It becomes available early the next morning.
Treaty Text
The Treaty feature in THOMAS does not contain the actual text of the treaty itself. GPO does provide a full text search of Treaty text for the 104th through the present Congress, along with associated documents such as the Letter of Transmittal and the Letter of Submittal.
Treaties Search Help
Treaties may be searched by: Congress, Treaty Number, Word/Phrase, Type of Treaty, and Date of Transmission. The Word/Phrase option searches all parts of the Treaty record but not the text of the treaty itself. Use quotation marks to specify phrases and drop hyphens that are part of a phrase.
Treaty Search Results
Brief Displays
When the search returns more than one treaty record, all the records found will be returned in a brief display, which may include: treaty number, old treaty number, date transmitted to the Senate, short title, type, countries/parties and latest major legislative action.
By default, the records are sorted in reverse order by date. Results can also be sorted by treaty number order or latest action order.
Full Displays
To see the full display of a treaty record, click on the treaty number in the brief display. Searches that find only one result will immediately display all available information.
Each individual treaty record typically shows the following information:
- Treaty Number
- Date Transmitted
- Short Title
- Type
- Formal Title
- Senate Executive Report Number
- Related Documents
- Text of Resolution of Advice and Consent
The resolution of advice and consent is available only from the 98th Congress to the present. The Resolution may be very brief or it may contain a considerable number of reservations, understandings, conditions, declarations, statements, etc. - Legislative Actions
Details the stages of approval (or disapproval) the treaty achieved to the present time.
