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Codex Alimentarius

The Codex Alimentarius is a large collection of internationally recognized food standards and guidelines. These standards are devised and administered through the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) and associated committees. This entry examines the evolution of the Codex, how the Codex works, and the standard-setting process.

The CAC is an intergovernmental organization jointly administered by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Member governments of the CAC negotiate and agree on international food standards. According to Article 1 of the Statutes of the Codex (CAC, 2010), the CAC is responsible for matters pertaining to the implementation of the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme and aims to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the food trade; promote coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and nongovernmental organizations; determine priorities and initiate and guide the preparation of draft standards through and with the aid of appropriate organizations; finalize standards elaborated and publish them in a Codex Alimentarius either as regional or worldwide standards, together with international standards already finalized by other bodies, wherever this is practicable; and amend published standards, as appropriate, in light of developments.

With the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, international agreements came into force with consequences for the CAC. The finalization of the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) conferred a new status on the standards agreed in the Codex by linking them to the international trading system. The standards agreed in the Codex are not mandatory; they do not provide a substitute or alternative to national legislation. However, as Codex standards are now located within the international trade system, there is an expectation that member governments of the WTO will use the standards agreed in the Codex as a basis for national food laws. As a result, the standard-setting process within the Codex involves political, legal, economic, scientific, and public health considerations.

Evolution of the Codex

The origins of the Codex are found outside of the UN system, with the formation of the Codex Alimentarius Europaeus in 1958. According to Randell (1995), the CAC emerged from this European grouping that sought to establish an international food code. The notion of a European organization devoted to the production of food standards attracted attention from nonmembers, notably the United States. In response, in 1962, the intergovernmental CAC was created as a joint agency of the FAO/WHO. Twenty-seven member governments participated in the first session of the commission in 1963. As of 2013, the CAC comprises 186 members (governments) and 217 observers (internationally organized interest groups who participate in the process).

The CAC began to undergo institutional change during the late 1980s. Before the SPS and TBT agreements were finalized in 1994, work was taking place to reconfigure the Codex in order to address the demands of integration into the trade system. In March 1991, the FAO/WHO Conference on Food Standards, Chemicals in Food and Food Trade was held in cooperation with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The main outcomes of this conference were proposals to reduce the detail contained in many Codex standards, to review the scientific basis of Codex standards (given the need under the proposed General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade agreements for countries deviating from Codex standards to provide scientific evidence for doing so), to make more explicit the methods used for risk assessment in standard setting, and to increase the participation of developing countries in the CAC (McNally, 1991). While the TBT and SPS agreements came into force from January 1, 1995, the effects of the run-up to the Uruguay Round were felt from 1991 onward. In the CAC, disputes between European Union member states and the Quad or Cairns Group (comprising the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) were occurring. As Jukes (2000) notes, tensions over the use of hormones in cattle for beef and milk production were intensified in the CAC during the early 1990s.

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