As countries and cultures become more global and less isolated, standards in everything from science, measurement, quality, manufacturing, environmental sciences, safety and trade are required for ease of trade, travel and collaboration. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the child of two separate organizations, the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA), which was founded in 1926 in New York, and the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC).
In 1946, 25 countries sent delegates to London to meet at the Institute of Civil Engineers, in the hopes of establishing an international agency that could collaboratively created industrial standards that could be adopted internationally. On 23 February 1947, ISO was created and began its work. In the last six decades, the ISO has created and established more than 16,500 standards. Freight containers, banking and telephone cards, computer protocols and testing methods are all standards the ISO has set, thereby facilitating easier trade, travel and research collaboration around the world.
The ISO connects 157 national standards institutes from around the world — each member country being represented by one institute. The ISO is managed by a Central Secretariat, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a non-government agency, although many of the participating institutions are government agencies, and others are private. The name is obviously different in other languages, but the acronym ISO remains the same, for the sake of standardization. ISO is from the Greek word, isos meaning “equal.”
ISO is a democratic organization, with each member country having one vote. Each member country has equal influence, and all the standards are voluntary. The ISO has no authority or jurisdiction to enforce the standards it establishes. The standards are market driven, established by consensus, and are highly relevant to the current needs set by consumers, governments, businesses, market trends, etc.
The ISO establishes standards defining quality, safety and interchangeability in products, environmental standards, common technical language and terminology, classification of materials, manufacture testing and analysis, among many other areas. Without their work, countries would have extreme difficulty conducting efficient and profitable trade, sharing medical and scientific research, establishing environmental legislation, and assessing conformity in manufacturing.
The ISO continues to be instrumental in establishing universal standards that in large part are generally accepted and adopted by member nations in particular. Over the last few decades, it has also been especially concerned with the participation of developing countries, and has made a great effort to give these countries the financial support as well as technical assistance needed to be part of global standardization.
