The boundary is 566 nautical miles long and consists of 24 maritime straight-line segments defined by 25 individual coordinate points.

The treaty resolved a number of territorial disputes between the Cook Islands and the United States.

Second, the United States implicitly demonstrated that it had abandoned its claim that Tokelau was part of American Samoa, since the boundary was set to terminate at its north end at a point at which a hypothetical equidistant boundary tripoint between the Cook Islands, American Samoa, and Tokelau would have existed.

In December 1980, the United States confirmed the tripoint by agreeing to the Treaty of Tokehega with New Zealand, which formally established the Tokelau–American Samoa border.

The treaty was ratified by the United States and the Cook Islands in 1983 and came into force on 8 September 1983.