Introduction

In an edited volume investigating decision-making in the World Trade Organization, a chapter including a case study on the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) may at first glance appear out of place. What can be learnt by an organisation that is one of the most important in the global institutional order, from one that is on the periphery? While the WTO's remit spans global trade management and political bargaining over current and future gains from trade, the FAO has traditionally been regarded as a functional agency as foreseen by David Mitrany (1943), concerned with technical cooperation and the dissemination of expertise to reduce hunger worldwide (Pedersen 2006). The only clear tie that binds them together is the Codex Alimentarius Commission, jointly founded by the FAO and World Health Organization (WHO) as an international food standards agency and used to provide guidance to the WTO when judging the legality of restricting the trade of foodstuffs on the grounds of food safety. However, if one looks beyond the policy domains of the two and focuses instead on the political pressures exerted on universal membership international organisations, there is a considerable amount that can be learnt from the FAO in recent years. This chapter looks at two areas: firstly, innovations made to decision-making processes that facilitate the taking of decisions by consensus, and secondly the role of crisis in galvanising member state support for such innovative processes.