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, IEC and ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee (JTC) 1 have published independent supplements to Part 1, which include procedures that are not common.

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 and ISO/IEC JTC 1 provide additional guidance and tools to all those concerned with the preparation of technical documents on their respective websites (www.iso.org/directives; http://www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs/ and http://www.jtc1.org).

This eighth edition incorporates changes agreed by the respective technical management boards since publication of the seventh edition in 2009. Procedures which are not common to the ISO/IEC Directives are published separately in the ISO Supplement, the IEC Supplement or the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Supplement, respectively. The Supplements are to be used in conjunction with this document

The principal changes with respect to the previous edition are as follows:

a) addition of references to the JTC 1 Supplement where appropriate;

b) addition of information on the handling of persistently inactive working group experts (see 1.12.3);

c) deletion of IEC specific information on project teams;

d) consolidation of information on the review of liaisons with other organizations eliminating the previous duplication of information (see 1.17.1);

e) clarification of the validity of PAS (see 3.2.4);

f) addition of the need for host organizations of technical committee and subcommittee meetings to provide information on access to meeting facilities i.e. availability of ramps, public transport etc. (see 4.2.2).

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.

a) Modern technology and programme management

Within the framework of these procedures, the work may be accelerated and the task of experts and secretariats facilitated both by progressive introduction of new technologies and modern programme management methods.

b) Consensus

Consensus, which requires the resolution of substantial objections, is an essential procedural principle and a necessary condition for the preparation of International Standards that will be accepted and widely used. Although it is necessary for the technical work to progress speedily, sufficient time is required before the approval stage for the discussion, negotiation and resolution of significant technical disagreements.

c) Discipline

National bodies need to ensure discipline with respect to deadlines and timetables in order to avoid long and uncertain periods of "dead time". Similarly, to avoid re-discussion, national bodies have the responsibility of ensuring that their technical standpoint is established taking account of all interests concerned at national level, and that this standpoint is made clear at an early stage of the work rather than, for example, at the final (approval) stage. Moreover, national bodies need to recognize that substantial comments tabled at meetings are counterproductive, since no opportunity is available for other delegations to carry out the necessary consultations at home, without which rapid achievement of consensus will be difficult.

d) Cost-effectiveness

These procedures take account of the total cost of the operation. The concept of "total cost" includes direct expenditure by national bodies, expenditure by the offices in Geneva (funded mainly by the dues of national bodies), travel costs and the value of the time spent by experts in working groups and committees, at both national and international level.

NOTE 1 Wherever appropriate in this document, for the sake of brevity the following terminology has been adopted to represent similar or identical concepts within ISO and IEC.