Saudi Arabia has approved plans to increase judicial co-operation with the US Department of Justice.
During a Cabinet session, ministers in the kingdom on Tuesday approved a preliminary agreement between Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Justice and the US Department of Justice, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
It is unclear what the agreement contains. The National has contacted the Department of Justice for comment.
The agreement comes a week before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is expected to visit Washington.
The state visit by Prince Mohammed, who is also Prime Minister, follows US President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar in May.
During a discussion on Wednesday organised by the Arab Gulf States Institute previewing the state visit, experts briefly touched on the judicial agreement.
"Saudi Arabia is going through a pretty extensive reform of their judicial system right now," said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at AGSI, describing the overall reforms as "very important".
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has sought to put its judicial system more in line with international standards in terms of transparency and human rights, among other issues.
More specifically, in 2021 the Crown Prince announced the implementation of several laws designed to give greater clarity to various judicial decisions while also limiting discrepancies in rulings.
Ms Diwan said details remain elusive about the agreement, but it is likely to involve sharing judicial expertise from the US, although she pointed out that the Department of Justice has come under criticism over the past year for becoming increasingly partisan.
Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University and board member of AGSI, said that Prince Mohammed would be accompanied by a delegation of about 1,000 people on his visit to the US, and that the judicial agreement was not necessarily surprising in the context of such a big trip.
"Virtually every Saudi minister is coming," he said. "There will probably be something more on judicial agreements along with other things as well."
Also on Tuesday, Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman met senior US officials at the White House. Others attending the meeting included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
Saudi Arabia's Cabinet also approved an agreement between the kingdom's National Institute for Health Research and the US Department of Health and Human Services.
