International Trade: Improvements Needed to Track and Archive Trade
Agreements (Letter Report, 12/14/1999, GAO/NSIAD-00-24).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on
improvements needed to track and archive trade agreements, focusing on:
(1) the number of trade agreements the United States is party to; (2)
the way in which the executive branch notifies Congress when trade
agreements are entered into; and (3) the extent to which the public has
ready access to information from government sources about trade
agreements.

GAO noted that: (1) the number of trade agreements to which the United
States is a party is uncertain; (2) officials at key agencies were
unable to provide a definitive count of all U.S. trade agreements that
are in force, despite the fact that the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR), the Department of State, and the Department of
Commerce have created separate archives containing many agreements; (3)
GAO identified 441 different trade agreements that entered into force
from 1984 through 1998 among the three archives, but were not able to
determine the total number of U.S. trade agreements in force; (4) this
is because: (a) agency archives serve different purposes; (b) a
governmentwide definition of what constitutes a trade agreement does not
exist; and (c) there are recordkeeping weaknesses and inconsistencies in
the archives; (5) the most comprehensive of these archives, was intended
to include all agreements but contains only about two thirds of the
total number of agreements that GAO identified by examining all three
sources; (6) Commerce's archive is incomplete because federal agencies
have not worked together to establish criteria for identifying
agreements to be included, and no interagency procedure has been
instituted for forwarding such trade agreements to Commerce; (7)
Congress is notified when trade agreements are entered into through two
formal mechanisms; (8) USTR's annual report, distributed to each member
of Congress, includes a list of substantive trade agreements that it has
negotiated since 1984 and that afford increased foreign market access to
the United States; (9) other agreements negotiated by USTR, such as
those that only regulate imports into the United States, are not
included; (10) as required by law, State sends Congress a copy of any
agreement that State determines is an international agreement based on
certain criteria that State defines and applies; (11) other federal
agencies are required to forward to State those agreements they
negotiate, including trade agreements, that might fall within the
criteria that State has established; (12) USTR recently established new
procedures to improve its transmittal of new agreements to State for
review; and (13) although federal agencies have provided the public with
greater access to information about trade agreements in recent years,
government sources available to the public are not always complete and
accurate.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  NSIAD-00-24
     TITLE:  International Trade: Improvements Needed to Track and
	     Archive Trade Agreements
      DATE:  12/14/1999
   SUBJECT:  International agreements
	     Foreign trade agreements
	     Treaties
	     Government information dissemination
	     Archives
	     Reporting requirements
	     Management information systems
	     Congressional/executive relations
IDENTIFIER:  North American Free Trade Agreement
	     NAFTA

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Report to the Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, House of
Representatives

December 1999 

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Improvements Needed to Track and Archive Trade
Agreements
*****************

*****************

GAO/NSIAD-00-24

Letter                                                                     3

Appendixes

Appendix I:U.S. Trade Representative, State, and Commerce Central Archives
of Trade Agreements

                                                                         26

Appendix II:Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

                                                                         32

Appendix III:Comments From the Department of State

                                                                         34

Appendix IV:Comments From the Department of Commerce

                                                                         35

Appendix V:GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

                                                                         38

Table 1:  Trade Agreements That Entered Into Force During 1984-98, Based
on USTR, Commerce, and State Archives10

Figure 1:  U.S. Export Growth as Compared to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Growth, 1970-977

Figure 2:  The Commerce, USTR, and State Department Archives Do Not
Contain All Trade Agreements11

Figure 3:  Department of Commerce's Internet Site Page for Accessing Trade
Agreements and Related Information18

GDP     gross domestic product

TCC     Trade Compliance Center

USTR    U.S. Trade Representative

USTR's responsibilities as chair of this committee are enumerated in
Executive 
                                                     National Security and 
                                             International Affairs Division

B-284062

December 14, 1999

The Honorable Bill Archer
Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means
House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

International trade has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy.
Since 1990, U.S. exports have increased about 70 percent, to almost 
$700 billion a year. In recent decades, the United States has led the
world in the effort to create a system of open trade under accepted rules,
in which reduction of trade barriers such as tariffs and import quotas
would help provide greater market access for U.S. goods and services. The
current administration has sought to build on previous efforts by
negotiating several hundred separate trade agreements since 1992 aimed at
opening markets and creating wider economic opportunities for Americans.
Most of these agreements were negotiated by the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative, which is part of the Office of the President and is
statutorily responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. international
trade policy. The rest were negotiated by the Departments of State,
Commerce, and other federal agencies. Congress has expressed interest in
how the executive branch monitors and enforces these agreements. One key
component of this process is the method the executive branch uses to track
its agreements. Another is the means by which the executive branch fosters
increased public awareness of the agreements and the opportunities that
they provide.

As you requested, we examined (1) the number of trade agreements the
United States is party to, (2) the way in which the executive branch
notifies Congress when trade agreements are entered into, and (3) the
extent to which the public has ready access to information from government
sources about trade agreements. 

Trade agreements are negotiated understandings between two or more
countries that generally address the terms of trade. There is no universal
definition of a trade agreement, because agreements can take many forms
and serve different purposes. 

Appendix II describes our specific scope and methodology.

Results in Brief

The number of trade agreements to which the United States is currently a
party is uncertain. Officials at key agencies were unable to provide a
definitive count of all U.S. trade agreements that are currently in force,
despite the fact that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, State,
and Commerce have created separate archives containing many agreements. We
identified 441 different trade agreements that entered into force from
1984 through 1998 among the three archives, but were not able to determine
the total number of U.S. trade agreements currently in force. This is
because (1) agency archives serve different purposes, (2) a governmentwide
definition of what constitutes a "trade agreement" does not exist, and (3)
there are record-keeping weaknesses and inconsistencies in the archives.
The most comprehensive of these archives, which belongs to Commerce, was
intended to include all agreements but contains only about two-thirds of
the total number of agreements that we identified by examining all three
sources. Commerce's archive is incomplete because federal agencies have
not worked together to establish criteria for identifying agreements to be
included, and no interagency procedure has been instituted for forwarding
such trade agreements to Commerce.

Congress is notified when trade agreements are entered into through two
formal mechanisms. First, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's
annual report, distributed to each Member of Congress, includes a list
(but not the text) of substantive trade agreements that it has negotiated
since 1984 and that afford increased foreign market access to the United
States./Footnote1/ Other agreements negotiated by the Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, such as those that only regulate imports into the
United States, are not included. Second, as required by law,/Footnote2/
State sends Congress/Footnote3/ a copy of any agreement that State
determines is an "international agreement" based on criteria that State
defines and applies. For example, State requires an international
agreement to contain commitments that are judged significant and legally
binding, among other criteria. Many trade agreements do not qualify as
international agreements under State's criteria. Other federal agencies
are required to forward to State those agreements they negotiate,
including trade agreements, that might fall within the criteria that State
has established. However, Congress may not have received the texts of some
trade agreements negotiated by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
that do meet the criteria because the agency has not transmitted copies of
all of its negotiated agreements to State. Neither agency has records
documenting whether the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
transmitted and State reviewed all trade agreements negotiated by the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that might fall within State's
criteria. Recently, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
established new procedures to improve its transmittal of new agreements to
State for review. 

Although federal agencies have provided the public with greater access to
information about trade agreements in recent years, government sources
available to the public are not always complete and accurate. Commerce's
trade agreements archive, publicly available on the internet since early
1998, is the government's principal vehicle for providing access to trade
agreements. However, Commerce cannot guarantee the texts' accuracy or
completeness, and the archive does not include all trade agreements. State
makes copies of its agreements available in two principal ways: through
the Government Printing Office and through Freedom of Information Act
requests. However, due to State funding limitations, the Government
Printing Office is only now printing texts of agreements signed in 1994,
and commercial publishers that obtain the agreements from State require
the public to pay for copies of the agreements. The Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative does not routinely make copies of its agreements
directly available to the public. Although the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative has provided the text of many agreements to Commerce for
inclusion in Commerce's archive, our analysis indicates that nearly 
30 percent of the agreements are not in Commerce's data base. Commerce
officials explained that many of these agreements are not in their archive
because they had either expired or were superseded by other agreements.

In this report, we are making recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce
and the U.S. Trade Representative to improve the accuracy and completeness
of trade agreement data bases. In addition, we are making recommendations
to the U.S. Trade Representative and the Secretary of State to comply with
the requirement for notifying Congress about international agreements that
meet the provisions of the Case-Zablocki Act. 

Background

The Constitution grants Congress the authority to regulate commerce with
foreign nations. In practice, Congress has long delegated authority for
proclaiming reciprocal tariff reductions with U.S. trading partners to the
President and has encouraged the President to enter into certain trade
agreements that meet congressionally mandated objectives. The Office of
the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) leads or directs negotiations with
other countries on many trade matters. Other federal agencies also
negotiate certain kinds of trade agreements. For example, the Department
of Commerce negotiates textile import agreements with other countries, and
the Department of Agriculture negotiates various trade-related agriculture
provisions. Trade policy is managed at the working level by the Trade
Policy Staff Committee, an interagency group with representation at the
senior civil servant level, administered and chaired by USTR. Policy
decisions are generally developed via interagency consensus; interagency
conflicts are resolved at progressively higher levels within the executive
branch. The committee also monitors the trade agreements program. 

Trade has become more important to the U.S. economy; since the late 1980s,
the rate of growth for U.S. exports has increasingly exceeded the overall
U.S. economic growth rate (see fig. 1). Almost all U.S. trade is governed
by trade agreements that employ specific language, terms, and objectives
to promote U.S. trade and to reduce barriers to the export of U.S.
products. For example, key trade agreements aim to improve U.S. market
access abroad by setting ground rules for the treatment of U.S. exports
and investments in foreign markets, establishing the maximum tariff that
will apply to U.S. exports, and providing for the gradual lowering or
elimination of such tariffs and other barriers over time. 

Figure****Helvetica:x11****1:    U.S. Export Growth as Compared to Gross
                                 Domestic Product Growth, 1970-97

*****************

*****************

Note: Exports and the gross domestic product (GDP) are presented as index
numbers where their value in 1970 equals 100.

Source: GAO calculations based on International Financial Statistics.
(Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, Jan. 1999).

Trade agreements vary considerably both in content and in form, depending
on their purpose. They may be generally categorized in a number of ways.
For example, agreements can be categorized by the number of signatories.
Most trade agreements that the United States is party to are bilateral.
However, regional agreements such as the North

American Free Trade Agreement/Footnote4/ and multilateral agreements such
as those under the World Trade Organization/Footnote5/ govern a greater
percentage of U.S. trade than the generally narrower bilateral agreements.
In addition, trade agreements can be categorized by the content of their
provisions. 
For example, some agreements cover specific industries or sectors such as
agriculture, automobiles, and telecommunications. Other agreements focus
more on technical or scientific issues affecting trade, such as
establishing standards to control the health and safety of agricultural
products. Also, some agreements focus primarily on opening foreign markets
to the United States, while others deal largely with regulating the
importation of various products into the United States. Finally,
agreements can also be categorized by whether or not they are binding.
Some binding agreements, such as the World Trade Organization agreements
and the North American Free Trade Agreement, have enforceable dispute
settlement provisions to resolve trade disagreements. Most other trade
agreements do not contain such provisions./Footnote6/

Trade Agreement Archives Do Not Contain All U.S. Trade Agreements
Currently in Force

We were unable to determine the total number of trade agreements currently
in force for several reasons. First, USTR, State, and Commerce, the main
trade agencies, could not provide us with a definitive count of the number
of trade agreements. While each maintains an archive that contains trade
agreements,/Footnote7/ the archives serve different purposes, and there is
no standard definition of what constitutes a trade agreement. Second,
Commerce's archive is intended to contain all trade agreements, but does
not. Finally, we found that the three archives in combination are
inadequate for the purpose of identifying the total number of in-force
trade agreements due to inconsistencies and record-keeping weaknesses. 

Archives Serve Different Purposes
---------------------------------

USTR, Commerce, and State officials could not provide us with a definitive
count of the number of trade agreements currently in force. Agency
officials said a standard definition of what constitutes a trade agreement
does not exist either in federal law or in interagency practice. The
agencies provided us with data from each of their archives. However, the
three archives were created for different purposes and, as a result, do
not always contain the same agreements. USTR's central archive, initiated
in 1996, is for internal use and is intended to include all trade
agreements negotiated by USTR; agreements negotiated by other agencies are
not included./Footnote8/ The State Department's archive is designed to
capture all international agreements negotiated by federal agencies (not
just trade agreements) that meet certain legal criteria such as those that
are significant and intended to be legally binding. According to State and
USTR officials, many trade agreements do not meet State's criteria and
thus are not included in State's archive. The Commerce Department's
archive, made available to the public over the internet in early 1998, was
designed to contain all trade agreements negotiated by federal agencies
but is not complete. (See app. I for more information about each archive.)

Commerce Archive Is Not Comprehensive
-------------------------------------

Commerce's archive does not contain all trade agreements as originally
planned./Footnote9/ Commerce officials told us they used one or more of
the following criteria to create their data base: (1) the parties are
national governments and agencies or intergovernmental organizations, (2)
the parties intended their undertaking to be binding, (3) the agreement
affects or might affect international trade, and/or (4) one or more
parties is a recognized territory outside the United States. To assess the
archive's completeness, we compared the names and dates of agreements in
all three

archives that entered into force during 1984-98./Footnote10/ Commerce had
only 283 of these agreements in its archive (see table 1). We found only
71 percent of USTR's agreements (that is, 180 of 252) and only 53 percent
of State's archived trade agreements (that is, 112-210) in the Commerce
archive (see fig. 2).

Table****Helvetica:x11****1:    Trade Agreements That Entered Into Force
                                During 1984-98, Based on USTR, Commerce,
                                and State Archives

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Period when      :   USTRa :   Commerce :  Stateb :    Total (without  |
| agreements       :         :            :         : double counting)c  |
| entered into     :         :            :         :                    |
| force            :         :            :         :                    |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1984-88          :      19 :         16 :      64 :                73  |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1989-93          :      97 :         87 :      71 :               142  |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1994-98          :     136 :        177 :      75 :               223  |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Date not         :       0 :          3 :       0 :                 3  |
| providedd        :         :            :         :                    |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Total            :     252 :        283 :     210 :               441  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

aFigures for USTR are based on USTR's list of substantive agreements
designed to increase U.S. access to foreign markets or reduce foreign
trade barriers.

bAgreements in State's archive were counted as a trade agreement if State
categorized them as a trade agreement or if a particular type of agreement
was included in USTR's archive.

cWhen more than one agency included the same agreement in its archive, the
agreement was counted only once.

dThree of the agreements in Commerce's archive did not include information
on when the agreement was signed or entered into force. Since the
agreements did not match agreements in USTR or State archives, the latter
could not be used to determine when the agreements entered into force. 

Source: GAO analysis of USTR, Commerce, and State archive records.

Figure****Helvetica:x11****2:    The Commerce, USTR, and State Department
                                 Archives Do Not Contain All Trade
                                 Agreements

*****************

*****************

aUSTR substantive trade agreements that afford increased access to foreign
markets or reduce foreign barriers and other trade-distorting practices.

Source: GAO analysis of Commerce, State, and USTR archives.

Commerce's archive is not complete because federal agencies have not come
together to establish agreed criteria for identifying all trade agreements
negotiated by federal agencies, and no procedure has been established to
secure the regular participation of agencies in forwarding trade
agreements to Commerce. In 1997 Commerce proposed to USTR that an
interagency group be created for these purposes, but USTR did not believe
that such a formal process was necessary. In addition, agency officials
have expressed conflicting views about the scope of the Commerce archive.
For example, according to Commerce officials currently responsible for
maintaining the data base, the archive is being used primarily to display
trade agreements that Commerce is directly responsible for monitoring and
enforcing. However, senior Commerce officials have indicated that the
archive is supposed to be a comprehensive data base of all trade
agreements. USTR officials told us that their understanding was that
Commerce intended to include anything that could be called a trade
agreement regardless of which U.S. government agency entered into the
agreement on behalf of the United States. Commerce officials expressed
surprise at this characterization, noting that USTR has not automatically
forwarded the texts of new trade agreements to Commerce for inclusion in
the archive.

Archives Have 
Record-keeping Weaknesses
-------------------------

We were unable to identify the total number of trade agreements currently
in force from the three archives because of a number of record-keeping
weaknesses and inconsistencies. First, USTR's central archive does not
include agreements still in force that it negotiated prior to 1984 except
for agreements that resulted from the 1967 Kennedy Round and 1979 Tokyo
Round of multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade./Footnote11/ Second, USTR's archive does not include all
enforceable agreements that USTR negotiated since 1984. For example, four
of six agreements between 1984 and 1997 with Japan on the Nippon Telegraph
and Telephone telecommunications procurement are not reflected in USTR's
archive. A USTR official told us that he believes USTR has included in its
archive most of the enforceable agreements going back to 1984. Third, USTR
and Commerce had not systematically updated their archives to remove
agreements that had expired or had been effectively superseded by another
agreement, although Commerce reports it has recently begun to do
so./Footnote12/ Fourth, Commerce's archive contains some, but not all,
trade agreements that are negotiated by agencies other than USTR, such as
those establishing safety standards affecting U.S. agricultural commodity
exports to specific countries. USTR includes in its central archive of
trade agreements only such technical agreements that it has negotiated. 

We also observed a number of problems in all three agencies' archives that
suggest their records are not fully complete or accurate. For example,
USTR's March 1999 list of agreements and Commerce's archive omitted an
important automobile agreement that USTR concluded with Korea in October
1998. Commerce's archive includes a 1995 Korean automotive agreement,
along with a copy of a USTR press release dated September 1998. However,
the press release is actually one that was issued by USTR in 1995 when the
agreement for that year was concluded. Similarly, the Commerce archive
listing for the Latvia Bilateral Investment Treaty displays the text of an
agreement with references to Moldova instead, including a place for
signature by a representative of Moldova. Moreover, the text of the
agreement is unfinished in some places, and the document is followed by
copies of letters that were exchanged between representatives of the
United States and Moldova. Finally, State's list of in-force agreements at
the beginning of 1998 did not include several agreements that had entered
into force several years earlier but did include several agreements that
had already expired, such as a voluntary restraint agreement on machine
tools with Japan.

Congress Is Notified About Many, but Not All, Trade Agreements

There are two principal means by which the administration formally
notifies Congress about the conclusion of trade agreements. First, USTR
sends Congress an annual report with a list of the names and dates of
substantive trade agreements entered into by the United States since 1984
that afford increased U.S. access to foreign markets or reduce foreign
market barriers and other trade-distorting policies and practices. (USTR
separately lists those agreements that have entered into force and those
that have not.) The list, which was created in response to congressional
interest, does not include substantive agreements that deal only with
imports into the United States. It also does not include agreements
negotiated by other agencies. According to USTR officials, the agreements
noted in the annual report are the agreements that USTR monitors for
compliance purposes. The USTR list contains a date for each agreement that
typically represents either the date the agreement was signed by one or
both of the parties or the date it entered into force. USTR does not
indicate which type of date is reported. (For some agreements, several
years intervene between the time an agreement is signed and the time it
enters into force.) USTR's list also does not identify which of the
agreements have expired. Although USTR does not routinely provide Congress
with the texts of the agreements it negotiates, it routinely consults with
congressional committees in the course of negotiations, according to USTR
officials. Moreover, any Member of Congress can receive a copy of any
agreement by requesting it. 

Second, as required by law, State sends Congress a copy of international
agreements, including trade agreements, that meet certain criteria within
60 days of the agreement's entering into force. As directed by the 
Case-Zablocki Act and implementing regulations, State defines and applies
criteria for deciding which agreements qualify as an "international
agreement." (State's Office of Treaty Affairs performs this function.) To
constitute an international agreement under the act, each of the following
criteria, among others, must be met:

o There must be two or more parties (unilateral commitments do not
  qualify).

o The parties must be a state, a state agency, or an intergovernmental
  organization, and they must intend their undertaking to be legally
  binding. Agreements intended to have political or moral weight but not
  be legally binding do not qualify.

o The commitments must be considered significant. Minor or trivial
  undertakings, even if couched in legal language and form, are not
  considered as international agreements under the criteria.

o The language that sets forth the undertaking needs to be specific and
  must include objective criteria for determining enforceability. 

According to USTR and State officials, many USTR-negotiated agreements do
not meet these criteria and thus are not provided to Congress by State.
The officials could not provide an estimate of the number, however,
because neither agency keeps records for this purpose and because, as
discussed later, not all of USTR's agreements have been reviewed by State.

USTR officials told us that agencies also use a variety of other
mechanisms to keep Congress informed of both trade negotiations and new
agreements. These include informal briefings and consultations with
congressional trade committees and interested members and staff, as well
as participation in congressional hearings and responses to congressional
requests for information./Footnote13/

Not All Agreements Provided to Congress
---------------------------------------

Congress may not have received all of the agreements and accompanying
documents, as required by law. Federal agencies that have negotiated an
international agreement that might fall within the criteria established in
State's Case-Zablocki implementing regulations are required to transmit
the text of the agreement to State within 20 days of the signing of the
agreement. Once the agreement is received, State's Office of Treaty
Affairs reviews the document, using its criteria, and determines whether
it is an international agreement. If so, Treaty Affairs transmits the text
of the agreement to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the
House no later than 60 days after the agreement enters into
force./Footnote14/ However, in spring 1999 officials in Treaty Affairs
told us that they believed many 
USTR-negotiated trade agreements had never been transmitted to State for
review. According to the State officials, they had previously raised this
issue with USTR on several occasions.

Record-keeping weaknesses at both USTR and State prevented us from
determining whether USTR agreements that were subject to congressional
notification requirements but that were not in State's archive had been
transmitted to State. (As previously indicated, State's archive of in-
force agreements at the end of 1998 did not include 149 of the 252
agreements that were in USTR's archive.) USTR officials told us that prior
to July 1999, responsibility within USTR for reviewing and forwarding such
agreements was highly decentralized and that USTR had not kept systematic
records of which agreements had been sent to State. Because of this and
because of high staff turnover, USTR officials said they could not be
certain that all relevant agreements had been reviewed and that all
reportable agreements had been forwarded to State. State officials advised
us that they do not keep a record of agreements received and that once
they determine that an agreement is not an international agreement under
their criteria, State does not systematically retain copies of such
agreements. Thus, State could not tell us whether it had previously
received or reviewed USTR agreements that were not in its archive.

In mid-July 1999, while our review was underway, USTR established a new
system for collecting newly concluded USTR trade agreements and
transmitting them to State. Overall control of the system is now
centralized in one office, and a record is being kept of each agreement
transmitted to State. USTR officials told us that they intend to transmit
to State all agreements USTR concludes. (Unlike previous practice, USTR
will not first review an agreement to assess whether the agreement might
possibly be considered an international agreement under State's criteria.)
In October 1999, State's Treaty Affairs Office told us that the office had
received the texts of six agreements through USTR's new system. The office
had determined that one of the agreements had qualified for inclusion in
its archive, four did not qualify, and one was still being reviewed.

USTR's new procedures do not address previously negotiated USTR agreements
that may not have been transmitted to State. During our review, USTR
provided State, in May 1999, with a list of the names and dates of about
250 substantive agreements that USTR had negotiated since 1984 and
requested Treaty Affairs to advise USTR of any agreements it would like to
review as a possible international agreement under the criteria. In
October 1999, State told us that it needed to examine the text of any
agreements on this list that were not already in State's archive in order
to apply its criteria. As of late November 1999, State's Treaty Affairs
Office had not provided us with data on the number of agreements (not
already in its archive) it had reviewed to determine if they qualified as
an international agreement under the act.

Many, but Not All, Trade Agreements Are Made Available to the Public

While federal officials note that improvements in public access to trade
agreement texts have occurred during the past 2 years, the public does not
have comprehensive and ready access to all trade agreements. Commerce and
State make copies of the texts of most agreements they have in their
archives available to the public. USTR does not routinely provide copies
to the public.

Commerce's Archive Is Useful But Has Limitations
------------------------------------------------

Commerce's internet-accessible trade agreement data base was created
specifically to provide the public with a government source for trade
agreement information. The data base, which Commerce began compiling in
1996, went online in mid-February 1998. According to Commerce, the archive
is intended for use by U.S. businesses; trade lawyers and practitioners;
federal, state, and municipal government trade policy officials; and the
general public. The data base allows users to review the texts of
agreements and to access, on the same site, commercial information about
market conditions and market access barriers in foreign
countries./Footnote15/ (See fig. 3.) The data base has a number of useful
features, such as enabling users to search by title, country, and keyword.
In addition, the web site allows U.S. companies to file complaints
electronically when they have problems gaining access to foreign markets
or believe trade agreements are being violated. (An electronic form is
provided that enables users to ask questions about trade agreement
implementation and commitments and report possible violations of trade
agreements.) Commerce guarantees an initial response to any query or
complaint about a trade agreement within 10 days. According to Commerce
officials, the web site service is especially helpful to small- and medium-
sized firms that do not have Washington offices and cannot afford to hire
Washington lawyers.

Figure****Helvetica:x11****3:    Department of Commerce's Internet Site
                                 Page for Accessing Trade Agreements and
                                 Related Information

*****************

*****************

Source: Department of Commerce. 

Although the creation of the data base has considerably expanded public
access to the content of trade agreements, users may not be aware of the
data base's limitations. First, the site does not inform users that the
data base does not include all trade agreements nor explain the basis by
which agreements were selected for the archive. Second, Commerce does not
guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the agreements--Commerce uses a
disclaimer that the text is for general reference purposes
only./Footnote16/ Commerce officials noted that since they do not retain
possession of the original copy of most agreements, they are not in a
position to provide such a guarantee. We observed, while examining all the
agreements in the data base, that some agreements did not contain the
complete texts of the agreements. Further, the text of one agreement that
we reviewed was for a different country than that listed in the table of
contents. When the data base was initially being developed, Commerce
recommended to USTR that a formal mechanism be put in place to guarantee
the authenticity of agreements. The proposal was not implemented.
According to a USTR official, the agency concluded it would not be cost-
effective to do so; if users needed such assurances, they could contact
USTR on a case-by-case basis. Third, the contents page does not include
information on the dates that the agreement was signed and entered into
force or which agency or agencies negotiated the agreement. Consequently,
to secure this information, one must review the text of each agreement.
Fourth, the data base does not tell the user if an agreement has expired
or been effectively replaced by more recent agreements. 

How Agreements in State's Archive of International Agreements Are Made
Available
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

State makes copies of its agreements available to nongovernmental users by
two means, according to State officials. First, State arranges for
publication of its agreements by the Government Printing
Office./Footnote17/ An agreement is initially printed as a pamphlet in the
series titled Treaties and Other International Acts Series. This
publication is recognized by statute as legal proof of the text's
authenticity for domestic law purposes, and State takes steps to ensure
that the printed text is a verbatim reproduction of the authentic text in
all of the agreement's languages, except for multilateral agreements
concluded within international organizations. Subsequently, the agreement
is published in the publication titled United States Treaties and Other
International Agreements. Both publications are sent to qualifying federal
depository libraries. However, due to budget constraints, State has not
prepared agreements for publishing until several years after their
negotiation. In June 1999, depository libraries were receiving the
pamphlet version of agreements that had been signed in June 1994. State
officials confirmed that these were the most recently published agreements. 

Second, when State sends a copy of an agreement to Congress, State
simultaneously makes copies available to interested parties through its
Freedom of Information Act office. According to a State official, several
publishing firms regularly secure copies of these agreements as they
become available and subsequently make them available for purchase in one
of several forms. For example, Oceana Publications, Inc., a publisher of
international legal materials, makes texts of the agreements available
both online and by CD ROM. According to Oceana, online users can search
for agreements and review and print texts for as little as $37.50 for each 
15 minutes. Oceana charges $500 per year to obtain quarterly updates of
the full text of treaties and agreements that the United States has signed
since January 1990. According to Oceana, this service makes treaties
accessible within 90 days of receipt by the Senate. Lexis-Nexis, a
provider of legal, government, and other information, makes copies of the
agreements available online to subscribers to its service. Lexis-Nexis
obtains the agreements from Oceana via a licensing arrangement. According
to a Lexis-Nexis spokesperson, the agreements that it posts are at least
several years old.

If an agreement is deemed by State to be highly important, State also
sends the agreement to the American Society of International Law and
encourages it to publish the agreement in International Legal Materials.
The Director of State's Treaty Affairs Office told us that State has plans
to make the texts of its agreements available to the public at no charge
via the Government Printing Office's internet site. Agreements would be
posted shortly after they are sent to Congress. The Director said the
Government Printing Office has agreed to do this but that he does not know
when service will begin.

State has several other ways for the public to obtain summary information
on trade agreements included in its archive of international agreements.
State publishes a book, Treaties in Force, that lists the names and dates
of treaties and other international agreements of the United States on
record in the Department of State on the first day of the year, as well as
the principal subject matter of agreements. The publication can be viewed
or downloaded from State's web site. (The January 1, 1999, publication was
made available in early October 1999. At that time, the report had not yet
been printed by the Government Printing Office.) Agreements that are
judged to address primarily trade matters are classified under subject
headings such as "commerce," "trade," or "trade and commerce." We found
that most USTR-negotiated agreements that were included in State's 1999
publication of Treaties in Force were classified under one of the trade
headings. However, some USTR agreements were classified differently by
State. For example, State classified bilateral investment treaties under
the subject of "investment" and intellectual property agreements under the
heading "intellectual property." Consequently, the public cannot rely
solely on State's subject headings to identify all trade agreements in its
archive. 

Another source for information about international agreements is State's
online listing of agreements called Current Treaty Actions. This source
lists the names and dates of agreements that were either signed and/or
entered into force recently. Agreements are listed by year and within each
year by the month when they are listed in the source. However, the source
does not categorize agreements by subject and does not include a search
capability. In addition, there is generally a 2-month lag between when an
agreement is signed or enters into force and when it is listed in Current
Treaty Actions. Information in Current Treaty Actions also appears in the
printed as well as the online version of the State Department publication
Dispatch, which is a monthly magazine providing major speeches and
congressional testimony from the Department.

Treaties in Force, Current Treaty Actions, and Dispatch do not describe
the Case-Zablocki Act criteria used to select agreements for inclusion in
the publications. In addition, the latter two publications do not provide
any direct information on how users can access copies of the agreements.

USTR Generally Does Not Provide the Public With Direct Access to Trade
Agreements
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

USTR's trade agreement archive is not open to the public, since it was
created to serve the internal needs of the agency. USTR principally makes
its trade agreements available to the public via Commerce's data base,
according to USTR officials. However, we observed in our review of the
USTR and Commerce archives that about 30 percent of USTR's agreements were
not found in Commerce's archive. USTR publishes a list of its substantive
trade agreements (since 1984) in its annual report and typically issues a
press release upon the conclusion of negotiations. USTR's internet site
also contains facsimile copies of a small number of recent trade
agreements. USTR officials also explained that if the public requests a
copy of a trade agreement from USTR directly, they will usually be
directed to the Commerce trade data base. If the information is not
otherwise available, however, USTR will provide a copy upon request.

Conclusions 

Fully securing the benefits of trade liberalization depends, in part, on
the ability of both private businesses and the public to quickly and
easily access the terms and conditions of the numerous trade agreements to
which the United States is a party. However, such access does not
currently exist. Commerce's archive is the largest of the three archives
maintained by State, Commerce, and the U.S. Trade Representative in terms
of the number of trade agreements it contains and is the most accessible
to the public. However, the archive is incomplete because it does not
contain at least 158 agreements that we identified in the USTR and State
archives. In addition, Commerce does not apply consistent criteria in
determining what agreements to include in the archive, some texts in the
archive contain factual errors, and none of the texts can be considered
authoritative. As a result, private businesses may not be taking full
advantage of the benefits secured by trade agreements because they are not
aware of them, or may be misinformed about the terms of those agreements. 

In addition, the U.S. Trade Representative and State do not know whether
USTR has transmitted all of its trade agreements to State that should be
reported for State's archive of treaties and other international
agreements. As a result, State may not have transmitted the text of
certain trade agreements to Congress as required by law. Lack of
information on the terms and conditions of these agreements could impede
Congress' oversight efforts to determine whether trade agreements are
being fully implemented.

Recommendations
---------------

In order to improve the accuracy and completeness of its trade agreement
archive, we recommend that the Secretary of Commerce

o clarify that the archive is intended to contain all trade agreements;

o establish, in consultation with USTR, State, the U.S. Department of
  Agriculture, and other appropriate federal agencies, clear criteria for
  the types of agreements to be included; 

o develop procedures, in consultation with other federal agencies that
  negotiate trade agreements, to ensure that these agencies regularly
  forward trade agreements to Commerce; and

o describe at its internet site the criteria used in determining which
  agreements are included in the archive and procedures by which users
  can obtain authenticated copies of the agreements.

We also recommend that the U.S. Trade Representative, as chair of the
Trade Policy Staff Committee, ask the group to consider how its member
agencies can assist Commerce's efforts to obtain accurate and timely
information on trade agreements concluded by those agencies.

To comply with the statutory requirement that Congress receive copies of
all agreements that qualify as international agreements, we recommend that
the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative transmit to State's Office of
Treaty Affairs the text of each substantive trade agreement that it has
negotiated that is currently in force and that does not appear in State's
present record of in-force international agreements. We also recommend
that the Secretary of State direct the Office of Treaty Affairs to review
each of these agreements to determine whether the agreement is an
international agreement under State's criteria and, if so, notify Congress
of such agreements no later than 60 days after receiving them. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Departments of
Commerce and State and from USTR. State and Commerce provided written
comments, which are reprinted in appendix III and appendix IV. State's
letter did not raise any issues concerning the report. We obtained oral
comments from USTR officials, including the Deputy General Counsel.
Commerce, State, and USTR also provided technical comments, which we
incorporated as appropriate.

Commerce characterized the report as very helpful and said it would
consider our recommendations carefully. While Commerce agreed that our
count of 158 agreements not found in the Commerce data base was accurate,
they explained that more than half of these agreements had either expired
or had been superseded by other agreements. Commerce noted its data base
is designed to include agreements that are currently in force. Commerce
also stated that some of the remaining agreements were not included in its
data base because they did not meet its criteria for trade agreements or
had not been loaded into Commerce's data base at the time of our review.
Commerce acknowledged that it had overlooked about two dozen agreements
that should have been included in its data base. We modified our report to
reflect that many of the 158 agreements that were not included in
Commerce's data base had either expired or were superseded. However,
Commerce's acknowledgment that it had overlooked some agreements and that
it may use different criteria from State and USTR for defining trade
agreements supports our conclusion that improvements are needed to
eliminate record-keeping weaknesses and establish, in consultation with
other agencies, clear criteria for the types of agreements to be included
in Commerce's data base.

USTR officials said that overall they found the report to be balanced and
fair. However, USTR expressed concern about our recommendation that USTR,
as chair of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, lead an interagency effort
to assist Commerce in obtaining accurate information on trade agreements
from other agencies. USTR officials said that agreements negotiated by
other agencies are generally addressed outside the Trade Policy Staff
Committee and that the Committee has no authority to direct other agencies
to provide agreements to Commerce. They noted that the process would not
work very well unless an agency with more overarching responsibility, such
as the National Economic Council or the Office of Management and Budget,
issued a directive. We continue to believe, however, that our
recommendation is appropriate since one of USTR's functions, as chair of
the Trade Policy Staff Committee, is to monitor and administer the trade
agreements program./Footnote18/ Moreover, legislation regarding the
Committee states it should draw upon the resources of its member agencies
to the maximum extent practicable./Footnote19/ If the Committee is not
successful in securing voluntary cooperation from its member agencies, it
should consider working with the National Economic Council or the Office
of Management and Budget to develop a more formal mechanism for obtaining
the needed trade agreements information.

We are sending copies of this report to appropriate congressional
committees. We are also sending copies of this report to the Honorable
Madeleine K. Albright, Secretary of State; the Honorable William M. Daley,
Secretary of Commerce; and the Honorable Charlene Barshefsky, 
U.S. Trade Representative. Copies will also be made available to others
upon request.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me on (202) 512-3655. Key GAO contacts and staff acknowledgments are
listed in appendix V. 

Sincerely yours,

*****************

*****************

Susan S. Westin, Associate Director
International Relations and Trade Issues

--------------------------------------
/Footnote1/-^The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative prepares its
  annual report to meet a statutory requirement. The list of trade
  agreements, however, is not required by law.
/Footnote2/-^1 U.S.C. 112b, commonly known as the "Case-Zablocki Act," and
  the accompanying regulations, 22 C.F.R. 181.1-181.8. 
/Footnote3/-^State officially notifies the President of the Senate and the
  Speaker of the House.
/Footnote4/-^The North American Free Trade Agreement is a comprehensive
  free trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that
  went into effect on January 1, 1994. 
/Footnote5/-^The World Trade Organization, which was established in 1995,
  was created as a permanent organization to oversee implementation of the
  Uruguay Round agreements, to provide a forum for multilateral trade
  negotiations, and to settle disputes.
/Footnote6/-^Regardless of whether trade agreements contain dispute
  settlement procedures, U.S. trade law may be used to enforce U.S. rights
  under bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.
/Footnote7/-^As discussed, the Commerce and USTR archives include only
  trade agreements whereas the State archive also includes other types of
  international agreements.
/Footnote8/-^The central archive was established within the Monitoring and
  Enforcement Unit office. As discussed in appendix I, the archive
  includes both substantive and procedural agreements. Most of our
  analysis on USTR-negotiated trade agreements in this report focuses on
  substantive agreements that afford increased foreign market access to
  the United States. 
/Footnote9/-^Congress acknowledged Commerce's intent to establish a
  comprehensive data base of trade agreements in the Conference Report to
  the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 1997 (H.R. Rep. No. 104-
  863, 104th Cong., 2d Sess.). The Conference Report accompanying
  Commerce's appropriations legislation approved a reorganization of
  Commerce that established a trade compliance office to compile and
  utilize a comprehensive data base of trade agreements. 
/Footnote10/-^We selected 1984 as a sample boundary because USTR's archive
  generally does not contain information prior to 1984. Appendix II
  explains our methodology in greater detail.
/Footnote11/-^The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which entered
  into force in 1948, was created as a multilateral framework agreement to
  govern trade practices among member countries. As an organization, the
  General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade officially ended on December 31,
  1995, after the creation of the World Trade Organization.
/Footnote12/-^In contrast, once a year State publishes a document that
  lists all of the international agreements that are in force at the
  beginning of the year. The list includes a title that briefly describes
  each agreement and the dates the agreement was signed, entered into
  force, and became effective (if different from the date it entered into
  force).
/Footnote13/-^For example, USTR discusses the results of some of the trade
  agreements it has negotiated during the past few years and the progress
  made in efforts to negotiate certain new agreements in its annual report
  and its annual national trade estimate report.
/Footnote14/-^In recent years, State has not always met the 60-day
  transmittal requirement because some agencies have been late in
  forwarding completed agreements to Treaty Affairs. Eighteen agreements
  were reported late in 1995, 13 in 1996, 11 in 1997, and 6 in 1998. 
/Footnote15/-^Country information includes commercial guides, country
  reports on economic policy and trade practices, national trade estimate
  reports, and trade policy review summaries. According to the Under
  Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Commerce is also working
  on writing plain language, "how-to" guides that will tell firms how to
  use trade agreements to expand exports, how to know if they are being
  treated unfairly, and where to go for help.
/Footnote16/-^"Completeness" refers to both the text of an agreement and
  any accompanying documents (such as agreed minutes, side letters, or
  exchanges of notes).
/Footnote17/-^Under 22 C.F.R. 181.8(a)(1) through (9), the Secretary of
  State may determine that the publication of certain categories of
  agreements is not required, if certain legal criteria are met, such as
  that the agreements are of a limited or specialized nature or are
  classified.
/Footnote18/-^Order 12188, January 2, 1980, signed by President Jimmy
  Carter.
/Footnote19/-^19 U.S.C. 1872(c).

U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE, STATE, AND COMMERCE CENTRAL ARCHIVES OF TRADE
AGREEMENTS
===========================================================================

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Departments of State and
Commerce each maintain a central archive containing a large number of U.S.
trade agreements. However, the three archives were created for different
purposes and only partially overlap. In this appendix, we describe the
three archives and their contents.

USTR's Trade Agreements Archive

USTR began establishing a central archive of its trade agreements in early
1996, at the same time that it was creating a central office for
monitoring and enforcing trade agreements. According to USTR officials, up
to that point institutional memory and record-keeping regarding trade
agreements had not been very good. Given the increasing number of trade
agreements negotiated in recent years and the general, growing interest in
monitoring and enforcing trade agreements, USTR considered it important to
improve record-keeping.

According to USTR officials, the central archive, which was set up for
USTR's internal purposes, is a work in progress. The first goal was to
make sure that the archive contained all agreements negotiated by the
Clinton administration. According to the officials, this objective has
been met. The second goal was to capture all agreements going back to
1984; USTR maintains that goal is probably about 90 percent realized.
Although USTR was established in 1962, its central archive does not
include U.S. 
trade-related agreements it negotiated prior to 1984, nor those negotiated
by other U.S. government agencies, with the exception of 40 bilateral
friendship, commerce, and navigation treaties concluded between 1815 and
1968 and two major multilateral trade agreements concluded in 1967 and
1979, respectively. The archive includes (1) agreements that have entered
into force, (2) agreements that have not yet entered into force because
one or more of the parties have not taken necessary actions to approve
them, and (3) agreements that previously entered into force but have since
expired.

USTR does not employ a formal definition of a trade agreement in deciding
whether to include an agreement in its archive. According to a USTR
official, since all of USTR's work is related to trade and all agreements
in its archive are USTR-concluded agreements, any agreement in its archive
is necessarily considered a trade agreement.

USTR's central archive includes substantive trade agreements, procedural
agreements, and declarations. Substantive agreements are those that
include commitments on matters of substance that USTR considers to be
enforceable. Procedural agreements, such as trade and investment framework
agreements, typically establish bilateral or other nonbinding consultation
mechanisms. According to a USTR official, declarations usually occur in
the context of large ministerial meetings regarding the negotiation or
implementation of trade agreements and are issued at the conclusion of the
meetings. Declarations sometimes include substantive undertakings but more
often are process oriented and take stock of countries' positions at the
time the document is issued. Procedural agreements and declarations are
important, the official said, because they often help move countries
toward concluding substantive agreements.

USTR maintains three principal lists of the trade agreements that are
contained in its central archive. The first, or master list, refers to all
USTR agreements that have been collected to date, including substantive,
procedural, and declaration agreements generally going back to 1984. The
most recent updated list available to us in August 1999 was for the period
ending May 29, 1998. The second list includes all agreements negotiated by
the Clinton administration. In September 1999, USTR provided us with a
copy that included all agreements from January 1, 1993, through July 1,
1999. The third list is restricted to substantive agreements that have
entered into force since 1984 that afford increased foreign market access
or reduce foreign barriers and other trade-distorting policies and
practices. This list is reported to Congress each year as part of USTR's
annual report.

We compared the three lists of agreements and found some inconsistencies.
For example, we found that the master list of agreements did not include
16 agreements included in USTR's list of substantive agreements entered
into between 1984 and May 29, 1998. Our analysis also suggested that many
procedural agreements and declarations that were concluded between 1984
and 1992 may not be included in the total archive. USTR officials
confirmed that the total archive is incomplete and that archiving
procedural agreements and declarations negotiated prior to 1993 has not
been an agency priority.

Trade Agreements in State Department's Archive of International Agreements 

By law/Footnote1/ the Secretary of State is required to archive and
publish all treaties and all international agreements other than treaties
(called "executive agreements")/Footnote2/ to which the United States is a
party that are concluded during each calendar year. State does so in the
publication Treaties and Other International Acts Series. In addition,
under the Case-Zablocki Act, the Secretary of State is required to
transmit to Congress the text of any executive agreement as soon as
practicable after such agreement has entered into force but no later than
60 days thereafter. Federal agencies that enter into an executive
agreement on behalf of the United States are required to transmit the text
of such an agreement to the State Department not later than 20 days after
the agreement is signed. Federal agencies are also required to consult
with the Secretary of State prior to signing or concluding an
international agreement./Footnote3/

The State Department is afforded some discretion in deciding what
constitutes an international agreement to be published and notified to
Congress. As a result, not all trade and other agreements are included in
State's archive. According to State Department regulations, some of the
key criteria that it uses in deciding whether an agreement is an
international agreement (within the meaning of the previously cited laws)
are the following:

o Identity and intention of the parties. A party to an international
  agreement must be a state, a state agency, or an intergovernmental
  organization. The parties must intend their undertaking to be legally
  binding,/Footnote4/ and not merely of political or personal effect.
  Documents intended to have political or moral weight, but not intended
  to be legally binding, are not considered international agreements.

o Significance of the arrangement. Minor or trivial undertakings, even if
  couched in legal language and form, are not considered international
  agreements. In deciding what level of significance must be reached
  before a particular arrangement becomes an international agreement, the
  entire context of the transaction and the expectations and intent of
  the parties must be taken into account. 

o Specificity, including objective criteria for determining
  enforceability. International agreements require precision and
  specificity in the language setting forth the undertakings of the
  parties. Undertakings couched in vague or very general terms containing
  no objective criteria for determining enforceability or performance are
  not normally considered international agreements. However, the intent
  of the parties is the key factor in assessing whether agreements are
  enforceable.

o Necessity for two or more parties. While unilateral commitments on
  occasion may be legally binding, they do not constitute international
  agreements. Care should be taken to examine whether a particular
  undertaking is truly unilateral in nature or is part of larger
  bilateral or multilateral undertakings./Footnote5/ 

Department of Commerce's Trade Agreements Archive

Commerce began creating a trade agreement archive in 1996 along with the
establishment of the Trade Compliance Center (TCC). According to a former
Commerce official, TCC was established because the U.S. government had
engaged in a continuing process of negotiating new trade agreements but
had not focused on monitoring and enforcing them. At that time, the
location of even the most basic trade agreements and the number of
existing trade agreements were unknown, the official said. According to
the Director of TCC, the original intent of TCC was to assemble all 
U.S.-negotiated trade agreements in one place and make them accessible to
the public via the internet. To create this archive, TCC began with USTR's
1995 list of all USTR trade-related agreements and USTR's sub-list of
substantive agreements that focus on increasing access to foreign markets.
TCC then sought to obtain copies of these agreements from USTR. TCC
obtained additional trade agreements from other Commerce Department
offices. The documents were converted into an electronic and searchable
format via a scanning process.

In June 1997, TCC proposed to USTR that the two agencies convene an
interagency group to conduct a coordinated search for international trade
agreement texts and accompanying papers. Under the proposal, the group
would have employed a working definition of a trade agreement, and a
process would have been agreed upon for certifying that a copy of any
agreement provided to the TCC data base was an exact copy of the signed
original. TCC also proposed that Commerce and USTR develop a schedule for
locating, authenticating, and delivering the trade agreements to TCC and
that the group meet monthly to assess progress. However, USTR officials
did not believe such a formal process was necessary, and no action was
taken to implement it. Instead, according to USTR officials, USTR agreed
to certify the authenticity of trade agreements on a case-by-case basis
and began to informally provide newly negotiated trade agreements to TCC
for inclusion in its data base.

According to TCC officials, trade agreements are included in its data base
if the documents meet one or more of the following criteria: (1) the
parties are national governments and agencies or intergovernmental
organizations, (2) the parties intended their undertaking to be binding,
(3) the agreement affects or might affect international trade, and/or (4)
one or more parties is a recognized territory outside the United States.
The officials said that these criteria represent the TCC's working level
definition of a trade agreement and do not represent either an official
Commerce or U.S. government definition. They noted that applying the
definition involves making judgments.

According to TCC officials, TCC updates its archive by (1) reviewing the
list of USTR trade agreements published in successive annual reports, 
(2) consulting with USTR and other Commerce Department staff, 
(3) reading press releases, (4) perusing trade-related web sites, and 
(5) interacting with parties in the private sector. The Commerce archive
was made accessible to the public in February 1998 via a Commerce
Department web site on the internet.

TCC officials admit that the contents of their data base are not
comprehensive and that they are still trying to determine what types of
agreements should be included in the data base. During our review, we
identified and discussed with TCC officials some inconsistencies that we
found. They agreed, for example, that some but not all agriculture and
bilateral textile agreements, and antidumping suspension notices, are
included in their data base. They also said that although they had tried
to make the data base strictly trade or investment related, the data base
included some other agreements, such as scientific or technical
agreements, made among regulatory officials of the U.S. and other
governments, that might have a trade impact.

TCC's Director told us that he does not see TCC maintaining a complete
archive of all trade agreements but rather only those trade agreements for
which Commerce is responsible and should be held accountable. In his view,
USTR is responsible for maintaining a complete archive, and the TCC data
base is primarily a tool for the Commerce Department. However, other
Commerce officials told us that the TCC archive should be a comprehensive
archive of trade agreements in general. In addition, in testimony before
the Senate Finance Committee in February 1999, the Under Secretary for
International Trade asserted that one of TCC's major functions is to
provide information to American companies about trade agreements,
including how to use them, and how to know if their rights under these
agreements are being violated. Commerce noted in agency comments on this
report that its archive's focus is on nonagricultural trade, despite the
inclusion of some agricultural trade agreements. Commerce says it will
consult with the Departments of Agriculture and State, as well as USTR, to
develop a comprehensive policy on how these agreements should be handled.

In discussing TCC's data base, USTR officials told us that USTR (1) has
agreed to provide trade agreements to TCC for inclusion in TCC's database,
(2) understood that TCC intended to include anything that could be
considered a trade agreement regardless of which U.S. government agency
negotiated it on behalf of the United States, and (3) considered that
TCC's data base would be a main source for public access to U.S. trade
agreements. Further, they told us that USTR considers its archive to be a
subset of TCC's data base.

--------------------------------------
/Footnote1/-^U.S.C. 112a.
/Footnote2/-^There are two procedures under the Constitution through which
  the United States enters into international agreements. Any
  international agreement whose entry into force requires advice and
  consent from the U.S. Senate is a "treaty." In addition to a treaty, the
  term "executive agreement" is used to refer to international agreements
  concluded by the executive branch (a) pursuant to or in accordance with
  existing legislation or a prior treaty, (b) subject to congressional
  approval or implementation, and/or (c) under and in accordance with the
  President's Constitutional powers. 
/Footnote3/-^In situations where an interagency committee has been
  established for the purpose of approving agreements, the consultation
  requirement may be satisfied if the Secretary of State or her designee
  has been consulted in his or her capacity as a member of the committee.
  See 22 C.F.R. 181.4(g). 
/Footnote4/-^USTR officials advised us that USTR's standard for what is
  "legally binding" with regard to agreements that USTR negotiates may not
  be equivalent to the standard the State Department uses in considering
  whether an agreement should be considered enforceable for purposes of
  the Case-Zablocki Act.
/Footnote5/-^See 22 C.F.R. 181.2(1)-(4).

OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY
==================================

The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee asked us to determine
(1) the number of trade agreements the United States is party to, (2) the
way in which the executive branch notifies Congress about its trade
agreements, and (3) the extent to which the public has ready access to
trade agreements from government sources. 

To determine the number of trade agreements the United States is a party
to, we reviewed documentation and interviewed officials at USTR and the
Departments of State and Commerce. Since these agencies do not employ a
common definition of a trade agreement, and the criteria they use in
collecting data on trade agreements vary, the agencies could not provide
us with a total count of how many trade agreements are currently in force.
To approximate the number of agreements, we reviewed lists of the
agreements in the archives of USTR, State, and Commerce and sought to
create a master list that eliminated double- or triple-counting of the
same agreement. We largely did this by incorporating information on the
names, dates, and partners of each agreement in each agency's data base
and comparing the results. To reconcile the lists, we reviewed the texts
of the agreements in Commerce's data base. We did not verify whether the
USTR and State lists fully reflected the contents of the archives.

We collected information on agreements that entered into force from
January 1, 1984, through December 31, 1998. We could not go back farther
than 1984 because USTR's central archive generally does not include (with
two exceptions) agreements that it negotiated prior to 1984. We tried to
identify only agreements that were still in force on December 31, 1998,
but were not able to fully do so because of inadequate documentation in
the Commerce and USTR archives.

From USTR's archive, we included all agreements that USTR officials
identified as being substantive agreements that afford the United States
increased foreign market access or reduce foreign barriers and other trade-
distorting policies and practices. We excluded procedural agreements that
lack enforceable provisions on increasing market access or reducing trade
barriers. We also excluded agreements that USTR refers to as
"declarations." Declarations, according to USTR, usually occur in the
context of large ministerial meetings. They sometimes include substantive
points but more often are process oriented and take stock of where the
countries are at the time a document is issued. If substantive points are
included, they are not considered enforceable by USTR.

From State's archive, which includes a wide variety of international
agreements, we included agreements that were categorized by State as
either a "trade" or "trade and commerce" agreement. In addition, we
included agreements categorized under a different subject heading if the
agreement appeared in either the USTR or Commerce data bases. We did not
include agreements categorized by State as customs agreements. Based on
criteria that State uses, any agreement in its data base is one judged by
State to include significant commitments by both parties and to be legally
binding.

We included most documents that appeared in Commerce's trade agreements
data base. We excluded some documents that clearly were not trade
agreements, that did not fall within the time period of our review, or
that had not entered into force. According to Commerce, its archive
contains the texts of trade agreements. According to Commerce officials,
the data base includes agreements that meet any or all of the following
criteria: (1) the parties are national governments and agencies or
intergovernmental organizations, (2) the parties intend their undertaking
to be binding, (3) the agreement affects or may affect international
trade, and/or (4) one or more parties is a recognized territory outside
the United States. According to Commerce officials, Commerce's archive
also excludes declarations.

To determine the way in which the executive branch notifies Congress about
its trade agreements, we reviewed statutes and regulations pertaining to
trade policy and procedures for notifying Congress of international
agreements. In addition, we interviewed agency officials from USTR,
Commerce, State, and the Department of Agriculture.

To determine the extent to which the public has easy access to trade
agreements from government sources, we examined Commerce's internet trade
data base web site; reviewed State publications and its internet site
containing information on international agreements; and inspected USTR's
internet site. We also interviewed agency officials from Commerce, State,
and USTR. In addition, we spoke with several companies that publish
international agreements and accessed the internet sites of Oceana and
Lexis-Nexis for additional information on their services.

We did our work from June 1998 through November 1999 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.

COMMENTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE
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COMMENTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
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The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Commerce's letter
dated November 24, 1999.

GAO Comments

   1.Commerce's explanation for why its archive does not contain 158 of
         the 441 agreements that we identified in the USTR, Commerce, and
         State archives is based on Commerce's analysis of a list of the
         158 agreements we provided to them. Since we had also identified
         instances in which the USTR and State archives contained
         agreements that were no longer in force or had been superseded by
         other agreements, we accept Commerce's explanation for the
         majority of the missing agreements. 

   2.Commerce reported that the remainder of the missing agreements either
         did not meet Commerce's criteria for inclusion, had not yet been
         loaded into the data base, or had been overlooked. Since Commerce
         did not identify to us the particular agreements in each
         category, we cannot comment specifically on its response.
         However, Commerce elsewhere notes that it is taking steps to
         clarify the criteria for including agreements in its data base
         and improve its accuracy. Such steps will address our concern
         about the utility of the data base.

   3.We modified our report to acknowledge Commerce's intent to resolve
         the issue of whether or not agriculture agreements should be
         included in the Commerce data base.

   4.We noted in our report that Commerce has begun periodic reviews of
         its data base to remove obsolete agreements.

GAO CONTACTS AND STAFF ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
======================================

GAO Contacts

Elizabeth Sirois (202) 512-8989
Anthony Moran (202) 512-8645

Acknowledgments

In addition to those named above, Shirley Brothwell, Wayne Ferris, Kim
Frankena, and Katharine Woodward made key contributions to this report.

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