International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

According to its statutes, the mission of ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, is "to promote the development of standardization throughout the world, in order to facilitate the exchange of goods and services between nations, and to achieve international understanding in the intellectual, scientific, technical and economic fields".

It has a general vocation, and its field of activity is formally limited only by that of its sister organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) .

Founded in 1947 as an international association under Swiss law, its activities have long focused on the mechanical engineering sector, such as fasteners, and products for international trade.

However, ISO was revived in the mid-1980s under the influence of :

• on the one hand, the worldwide, cross-disciplinary success of the ISO 9000 series of quality management and quality assurance standards, first published in 1987;

• secondly, the emergence of European standardization, which in certain sectors is now able to offer alternatives to those proposed by the major American standards development organizations such as ASTM (American Society for Testing and Material), API (American Petroleum Institute) and ASME (American Society for Mechanical Engeneers).

This revival has been consolidated by the new provisions of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement, which calls on the 134 signatory countries to base their regulations on international standards. Although no definition is given of the latter, there is no doubt that ISO publishes international standards. ISO has observer status on the TBT committee.

Contact details for the ISO website are : http://www.iso.ch