scope:

Foreword

The ISO/IEC Directives are published in two parts:

• Part 1: Procedures for the technical work

• Part 2: Rules for the structure and drafting of International Standards

Furthermore, ISO and IEC have published independent supplements to these parts, which include procedures that are not common to the two organizations. All forms related to the process of standards development are given in the respective Supplements to the ISO/IEC Directives.

This part sets out the procedures to be followed within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in carrying out their technical work: primarily the development and maintenance of International Standards through the activities of technical committees and their subsidiary bodies. ISO/IEC JTC 1 has procedures that differ in part from those applicable to other committees in ISO and IEC.

Both ISO and IEC provide additional guidance and tools to all those concerned with the preparation of technical documents on their respective websites (http://www.iso.org/tc and http://www.iec.ch).

This seventh edition incorporates changes agreed by the respective technical management boards since publication of the sixth edition in 2008. Procedures which have been adopted in only one of the organizations are being published separately in the ISO Supplement or the IEC Supplement to the ISO/IEC Directives, respectively. The Supplements are to be used in conjunction with this document.

The principal changes with respect to the previous edition are:

a) Addition of recommendations on the formulation of scopes of technical committees and subcommittees which is a combination of information previously given in the ISO and IEC Supplements (see Annex J)

b) Expanded the Chairmen's responsibilities to include information previously given in the ISO Supplement (see 1.8.2)

c) Expanded the Secretariat's responsibilities to include information previously given in the ISO Supplement (see 1.9.2)

d) Adopted Strategic Business Plan for the previously designated Business Plan in ISO and Strategic Policy Statement in IEC (see 2.1.2)

e) Increased flexibility at the committee stage to use a commenting period of 2, 3 or 4 months as agreed by the technical committee or subcommittee (see 2.5.2)

f) Modified the copyright text to include information previously given in the ISO Supplement (see 2.13)

g) Included procedures for project committees (see 1.10 and Annex K)

These procedures have been established by ISO and IEC in recognition of the need for International Standards to be cost-effective and timely, as well as widely recognized and generally applied. In order to attain these objectives, the procedures are based on the following concepts.