Putting a Face on Those Bureaucrats in Geneva

Okay, in Rome, not Geneva, but the point holds. Following in Duncan’s footsteps, I’ve been teaching here for the month in a Temple Law summer program. On Friday, we had an interesting visit to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which is headquartered here, with presentations by several lawyers in the agency’s legal service.

It was interesting stuff. FAO has its hands in a broad range of policy, including things like forestry and land ownership regimes. Of necessity, it takes the road of persuasion and expert assistance rather than trying to exercise muscle that it probably doesn’t have. Probably a nice example of government networks at work, this time through agriculture ministries (here’s a "framework agreement" between the FAO and the USDA). This was all news to me — being an international legal academic these days is about as meaningful as being an "American law scholar" — there’s just way too much to get your hands around. The lawyers, including our host, American Jessica Vapnek, came across as thoughtful and highly knowledgeable.

But the kicker was a short appearance at the end by Deputy Director-General James G. Butler. He is straight out of central casting to play the cattle commissioner of the state of Texas, right down to the cowboy boots and a drawl to match, and here he is, doing the good work of the United Nations. Butler gave a short talk to our students exhorting a life in public service, including, by implication of context, a life in international public service.

I have no idea how Butler came to be number two at FAO (although I assume the Bush Administration had something to do with it), and I have no idea how he really fits into the international bureaucracy (although it doesn’t appear to be in a John Bolton/fox-in-the-henhouse kind of way). This is not the kind of person that gives the anti-internationalists much of a target, for whom the bureaucrats in Geneva have long supplied a punchline. Not only is he not a foreigner, he’s got none of the traits of the chattering classes that might make him look like one, the citizenship notwithstanding. If this is the new face of global governance, sovereigntism hasn’t got a chance.