Who develops ISO standards?

ISO standards are developed by technical committees comprising experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors which have asked for the standards, and which subsequently put them to use. These experts may be joined by others with relevant knowledge, such as representatives of government agencies, testing laboratories, consumer associations, environmentalists, academic circles and so on. The experts participate as national delegations, chosen by the ISO national member institute for the country concerned. These delegations are required to represent not just the views of the organizations in which their participating experts work, but of other stakeholders too. According to ISO rules, the member institute is expected to take account of the views of the range of parties interested in the standard under development and to present a consolidated, national consensus position to the technical committee.

How ISO standards are developed?

The national delegations of experts of a technical committee meet to discuss, debate and argue until they reach consensus on a draft agreement. This is then circulated as a Draft International Standard (DIS) to ISO's membership as a whole for comment and balloting. Many members have public review procedures for making draft standards known and available to interested parties and to the general public. The ISO members then take account of any feedback they receive in formulating their position on the draft standard. If the voting is in favor, the document, with eventual modifications, is circulated to the ISO members as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). If that vote is positive, the document is then published as an International Standard.  Every working day of the year, an average of ten ISO meetings are taking place somewhere in the world. In between meetings, the experts continue the standards' development work by correspondence. Increasingly, their contacts are made by electronic means and some ISO technical bodies have already gone over entirely to electronic working, which speeds up the development of standards and reduces travel costs.

 ISO's international partners:

ISO collaborates with its partners in international standardization, the IEC (International Electro technical Commission) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union). The three organizations, all based in Geneva, Switzerland have formed the World Standards Cooperation in order to better coordinate their activities, as well as the implementation of International Standards.ISO is one of the few non-governmental organizations having an observer status in the World Trade Organization. Its contribution is increasingly solicited in relation to the elimination of technical barriers to trade. ISO collaborates with the United Nations Organization and its specialized agencies and commissions, particularly those involved in the harmonization of regulations and public policies such as: CODEX, Alimentarius for food safety measurement, management and traceability;
UNECE, for the use of ISO Standards in relation to the safety of motor vehicles or the transportation of dangerous goods;
WHO, the World Health Organization for health technologies;
 IMO, the International Maritime Organization, for securing maritime and inter modal transport; WTO-T, the World Tourism Organization, for the quality of services related to tourism; or with those engaged in bringing assistance and support to developing countries such as UNCTAD, UNIDO or the International Trade Centre. ISO's technical committees have formal liaison relations with some 580 international and regional organizations, which complement this impressive network and which, together with the network of its national members, is key for the global relevance, actual use and recognition of its Standards by the market forces and the general public. Relations with international groups of stakeholders have also been reinforced. ISO is now an institutional member of the World Economic Forum, has increased its collaboration with NGOs representing societal or professional interests, such as Consumers International, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development or the international Federation of Standards Users (IFAN) and collaborates regularly with the major international organizations involved in metrology, quality and conformity assessment.