Britannica.com: Encyclopedia articles on executive agreements Although congressional treaties and executive agreements are international agreements, the two are legally different instruments. For example, agreements between Congress and the executive branch cannot deal with matters that do not fall within the enumerated powers of Congress and the President (the powers expressly granted to Congress and the President in Article I, Section 8 and Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, respectively), while treaties may. Moreover, according to the constitution, a treaty is ratified only if at least two-thirds of the Senate votes in favor of it. On the other hand, an agreement between Congress and the executive branch becomes binding with only a simple majority in both houses of Congress. Agreements between Congress and the executive branch should not be confused with executive agreements made by the president alone. In summary, the three categories of executive agreements reflect a historic trend towards strong foreign policy leadership. Only three last points need to be added. First, the judgment to resort to these agreements rather than the conventional alternative is essentially political, influenced more by the circumstances surrounding it than by abstract legal theories. Second, once executive agreements enter into force, they are presumed to bind the United States and other parties under international law to the same extent and in the same manner as treaties.

Third, international commitments under these agreements will not survive any subsequent limitation or limitation of national law. Most executive agreements were entered into under a treaty or an act of Congress. Sometimes, however, presidents have entered into executive agreements to achieve goals that would not receive the support of two-thirds of the Senate. For example, after the outbreak of World War II, but before the United States entered the conflict, President Franklin D. Roosevelt negotiated an executive agreement that gave the United Kingdom 50 supership destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases at some British naval bases in the Atlantic. Single Executive Agreements are international agreements entered into by the President without reference to treaties or legal powers, that is, exclusively on the basis of the President`s constitutional powers as Chief Executive officer and Commander-in-Chief, responsible for foreign relations and military affairs of the United States. State Department records show that only a small percentage of executive agreements are of this nature and that the vast majority of them have essentially dealt with routine diplomatic and military matters. Therefore, with the relatively minor exception (such as agreements to regulate property and bodily injury to citizens against foreign governments), they have had little direct impact on private interests and have therefore given rise to few domestic disputes. However, in part out of concern that the president might, through an international agreement, do something that would be unconstitutional by law, as was actually the case in Missouri v. Holland (1920), such agreements were not without controversy. Two subjects still stand out in particular.

The Case Zablocki Act of 1972 requires the president to inform the Senate within 60 days of reaching an executive agreement. The Powers of the President to conclude such agreements have not been limited. The notification requirement allowed Congress to vote on the repeal of an executive agreement or to refuse to fund its implementation. [3] [4] The term „executive agreement,“ which is not widely used outside the United States, but has its equivalents abroad, is understood by the State Department to generally refer to any international agreement adopted with respect to the United States without the constitutional approval of the Council and Senate required for treaties. In particular, it is considered to refer to three types of agreements: agreements concluded on the basis of or in accordance with an existing contract; those that are subject to the approval or implementation of the Congress („Congress-Executive Agreements“); and those made within the framework of and in accordance with the constitutional powers of the President („Executive Agreements Only“). None of these executive agreements shall be subject to the formal contractual process provided for in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution. Executive agreements are often used to circumvent the requirements of national constitutions for treaty ratification. Many nations that are republics with written constitutions have constitutional rules on ratifying treaties. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is based on executive agreements. In addition to the two issues above, there is a broad consensus on the scope and effect of purely executive agreements as a matter of constitutional law.

Like the other two types of executive agreements, they are subject to the same restrictions as those that apply to treaties, they are not limited by the Tenth Amendment and replace all inconsistent state laws. The use of executive agreements increased considerably after 1939. Before 1940, the United States The Senate ratified 800 treaties and the presidents concluded 1,200 executive agreements; From 1940 to 1989, during World War II and the Cold War, presidents signed nearly 800 treaties but negotiated more than 13,000 executive agreements. First, the question, which has not yet been conclusively clarified, arises as to whether Congress can legislate to prohibit or otherwise restrict exclusive executive agreements. Although sweeping restrictions on such agreements, including the 1953-1954 Bricker Amendment Bill, have yet to be passed, Congress has nonetheless at times limited the president`s authority in a way that appears to exclude certain executive agreements. For example, the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional approval to introduce combat troops into hostile situations, arguably prevents the president from entering into agreements that would engage U.S. armed forces in undeclared foreign wars. .