Who does the work?

The technical work of ISO is highly decentralized, carried out in a hierarchy of some 2 850 technical committees, subcommittees and working groups. In these committees, qualified representatives of industry, research institutes, government authorities, consumer bodies, and international organizations from all over the world come together as equal partners in the resolution of global standardization problems. Some 30 000 experts participate in meetings each year.

The major responsibility for administrating a standards committee is accepted by one of the national standards bodies that make up the ISO membership - AFNOR , ANSI , BSI , DIN , SAC , SIS etc. The member body holding the secretariat of a standards committee normally appoints one or two persons to do the technical and administrative work. A committee chairman assists committee members in reaching consensus. Generally, a consensus will mean that a particular solution to the problem at hand is the best possible one for international application at that time.

The Central Secretariat in Geneva acts to ensure the flow of documentation in all directions, to clarify technical points with secretariats and chairmen, and to ensure that the agreements approved by the technical committees are edited, printed, submitted as draft International Standards to ISO member bodies for voting, and published. Meetings of technical committees and subcommittees are convened by the Central Secretariat, which coordinates all such meetings with the committee secretariats before setting the date and place. Although the greater part of the ISO technical work is done by correspondence, there are, on average, a dozen ISO meetings taking place somewhere in the world every working day of the year.

Each member body interested in a subject has the right to be represented on a committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.

The publication ISO Memento provides information on the scope of responsibility, organizational structure and secretariats for each ISO technical committee. Detailed rules of procedure for the technical work are given in the ISO/IEC Directives. A list of the 500 international organizations in liaison with ISO's technical committees and subcommittees is given in the publication ISO Liaisons.

Last modified 2002-09-27