The Bureau of Planetary Treaties was the agency responsible to conducting planetary treaties between the United Federation of Planets and independent governments. During the mid-23rd century, the Bureau of Planetary Treaties attempted for many years to coerce the Gideon Council to allow them to send diplomats to their planet in effort to persuade the Gideons to join the Federation. Their council, however, consistently refused the presence of a delegation from the Federation on its soil, and or any surveillance by the ship's sensors.