The International Organization for Standardization widely known as ISO, is an international standards body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. ISO currently has 163 national members across 203 countries (correct as of March 2011). While ISO defines itself as a non-governmental organization, its ability to set standards that often become law, either through treaties or national standards, often makes it more powerful than most non-governmental organizations.

The objective of ISO is to promote the development of standardization across virtually every sector of industry, bringing together the interests of producers, suppliers, end users (consumers), governments, regulatory bodies and technical communities, in the preparation of International Standards.

How are ISO Standards Developed?

ISO launches the development of new standards in response to sectors and stakeholders that express a clearly established need for them.

  1. The 1st step is to confirm that the industry/market requires such a Standard. This is achieved by an ISO  Technical Committee liaising with all members organizations to ensure that it receives the majority of support from those groups, and therefore confirming that there is an International need for such a Standard, and that importantly it would be suitable for implementation on as broad a basis as possible worldwide.
  2. Once confirmation has been recieved by this committee that the market need is apparent, the proposed Standard is submitted to the responsilbe committee and the relevant Working Group will start to work on its first draft. Once general agreement has been completed this 1st draft will be passed to the parent Technical Committee for approval.
  3. When the Technical Committee has reached an agreement it is then passed to the Central Secretariat so that the resulting document can be submitted to all ISO member bodies for voting and comments. For a document to be accepted as an ISO International Standard, it must be approved by at least two-thirds of the ISO national members that participated in its development and not be disapproved by more than a quarter of all ISO members who vote on it. If approval has been granted it can then be officially published as an International Standard.

How often are these Standards reviewed?

All International Standards are reviewed at the least three years after publication and every five years after the first review by all the ISO member bodies. Again, various committee’s decide whether an International Standard should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn, this is achieved by a majority rule.