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The European Economic Community: A Member of a Specialized Agency of the United Nations
Rachel Frid 1
Full text available: PDF format *
I. Introduction
From a pure legal theory approach this article could have been written in the seventies or, to be more precise, from the moment the EEC gained exclusive powers in some of the fields of activity of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). If it had been written then, the principal conclusion would have been that the EEC should become a member of the FAO in its own right. More detailed assertions in the article would have been considered as no more than a cry in the dark.
The EEC membership of the FAO marks a step forward in both the law of international institutions and European Economic Community law. It is quite an unusual achievement since the phenomenon of an international organization becoming a member of another international organization is still quite rare. The fact that international institutional law has developed out of classical international law has left its mark with respect to membership in international organizations - this right is still reserved, in most cases, for states only. It is not the first time that the EEC has become a member in its own right of an international organization.2 However its membership of the FAO is very significant because it is the first time that the EEC has joined an organization that falls within the United Nations family of international bodies.
The relationship between the EEC and the FAO is a unique case, but at the same time it features the general problems that arise from the EEC accession to international organizations.
This contribution will be limited to a discussion of the institutional problems related to the accession of the EEC, as a Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO), to the FAO as an international organization.
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1 Associate researcher, Europa Instituut, University of Amsterdam. I
would like to thank Professor R.H. Lauwaars and Professor P.J. Kuyper for their
constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.
2 Examples of EEC membership in other international organizations
include various fisheries organizations, such as the North Atlantic Fisheries
Organization (NAFO), and the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization
(NASCO). Also, on 27 April 1992 the Commission approved a proposal for a
Council decision for the accession of the EEC to the International Energy
Agency, Comm. Doc. No. SEC (92) 697.
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This file was last modified:
Tuesday, October 14, 2003 11:06AM