The Codex Alimentarius Commission was established by FAO in 1961. Since 1962 it has been responsible for implementing the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme, the primary aims of which are protecting the health of the consumer and ensuring fair practices in the food trade. The Codex Alimentarius Commission is an intergovernmental body, with 154 member governments. The Codex Alimentarius itself is a collection of food standards, codes of practice, and other recommendations presented in a uniform way [4]. Codex Alimentarius means "Food Code" or "Food Law" in Latin. Codex standards, guidelines, and other recommendations ensure that food products are not harmful to the consumer and can be traded safely between countries.

Food-safety standards are defined in the SPS Agreement as those relating to food additives, veterinary drug and pesticide residues, contaminants, methods of analysis and sampling, and codes and guidelines of hygienic practice. As mentioned above. Codex food-safety standards are to be used as the reference point for the WTO in this area. Over the years, the Codex Alimentarius Commission has established maximum residue limits for 182 agricultural and veterinary chemicals, 39 codes of hygienic and good manufacturing practice, and 227 Codex standards. It has evaluated over 700 chemicals proposed for food-additive uses and established guideline levels for a number of environmental and industrial contaminants in foods, including radionuclides.

Food hygiene has been a major activity of the Codex since its establishment. The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene is hosted by the government of the United States and has held 27 sessions since 1963. Because food hygiene is best regulated at the production and processing stage in the exporting country, the Committee's main outputs have been Codes of Hygienic Practice rather than end-product microbiological standards. The Codex Alimentarius Commission has been actively revising much of its work in recent years to stress the so-called horizontal aspects of food regulation, including food hygiene. New considerations, such as risk analysis and the determination of equivalence in different food-control systems, have an impact on the new approach to international food-hygiene regulations.