The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plays diverse roles in fisheries governance: it gathers and disseminates data and information; it serves as a forum for States to develop and adopt treaties and soft-law instruments; and it monitors the implementation of some of these instruments. Several of these functions rely on transparency, by the FAO or by States towards it. Beyond its specific role in relation to data sharing, transparency is a good governance principle contributing to accountability and enabling participation. This article examines how transparent the FAO is in its operations related to fisheries. The FAO was an early adopter of some aspects of sound practice in its approach to transparency, but now appears behind the curve: it lacks an access to information policy and its access to meetings policy does not account for treaty negotiations happening outside of governing body meetings. As a clearing house mechanism, the FAO is quite efficient but nevertheless could be clearer as to whether required information has been provided by States and why some information is restricted. Finally, as an entity monitoring the implementation of instruments, the FAO has developed an increasingly detailed naming and shaming technique to encourage States to respond to its requests for information. However, beyond this information on the identity of responders and some general aggregated data on the substance of the response, very little is made public. As States are acting towards the public interest through the FAO, it is hard to defend opacity in such matters.

粮食及农业组织（粮农组织）在渔业治理中发挥着多种作用：它收集和传播数据和信息；它是各国制定和通过条约和软法文书的论坛；并监控其中一些工具的执行情况。其中一些职能依靠粮农组织或各国对透明度的依赖。除了其在数据共享方面的特定作用外，透明度是一项良好的治理原则，有助于促进问责制并促进参与。本文研究了粮农组织在与渔业有关的业务中的透明度。粮农组织在采用透明方法的过程中是采用良好做法的某些方面的较早采用者，但现在却落后于曲线：它缺乏获取信息的政策，其获取会议的政策也无法说明在理事机构会议之外进行的条约谈判。作为信息交换所机制，粮农组织非常有效，但在国家是否提供了所需信息以及为什么某些信息受到限制方面却可以更加明确。最后，作为一个监督文书执行情况的实体，粮农组织开发了一种越来越详细的命名和遮蔽技术，以鼓励各国响应其对信息的要求。但是，除了有关响应者身份的信息和有关响应内容的一些一般性汇总数据以外，很少公开。由于各国正在通过粮农组织为公共利益而采取行动，因此很难捍卫在这些问题上的不透明性。