The Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation (the Committee) held a workshop on the role of Parliament in treaty-making processes on 9 May 2012 at the 15 On Orange Hotel, Cape Town. The Committee has been entrusted to oversee issues relating to the mandate of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (the Department). It was mandated to scrutinise foreign policy issues including those pertaining to international treaties. The power to negotiate and sign treaties, on the one hand, and to ratify treaties, on the other, remained shared between the executive and the legislature respectively.