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late the draft into their native language to facilitate their national consultations.) TAG members may still submit technical comments but it is much harder to make major changes at this point. Approval requires affirmative votes by 2/3 of the P-members voting and that less than 25% of the total votes cast are negative.
Comments are again collated and returned to the WG for consideration. Comment resolution follows the same pattern as at the CD stage—each comment is reviewed and corre- sponding changes may be made to the document. It is unlike- ly that any major changes will be accepted at this point.
The revised Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) is prepared and submitted to ISO for the Approval Stage. This is a two-month ballot conducted among the full ISO or IEC membership. National consultations are conducted again and, once again, the U.S. TAG members are invited to review the final draft. Unless a country is casting a negative vote, no more technical comments may be submitted—only minor editorial comments can be addressed. This is a straight “yes or no” vote and approval requires affirmative votes by 2/3 of the P-members voting and that less than 25% of the total votes cast are negative. The FDIS must be registered within 43 months after approval of the new work item proposal. As soon as possible after the completion of the voting, the doc- ument is published.
Every five years after publication, each standard is sub- jected to Systematic Review (SR), whereby the national member bodies review the document and assess its market penetration and continued relevance. The standard may be confirmed for another five-year period or the committee may decide to revise or withdraw it.
The role of the U.S. TAG is an important one for U.S. parties with an interest in the standards under development. At each voting stage, the availability of the document is announced to the U.S. TAG members so that they can review the document, discuss it with colleagues and co-workers, assess its potential impact on their business, and submit their comments. The benefits are obvious for TAG members who are not active on the WG. However TAG members who are on the international WG are encouraged to participate in forming the U.S. position so that their input is part of the official U.S. position. (See Fig. 2.)
U.S. TAG membership and benefits
For the U.S. TAGs administered by ASA, the TAG mem- bers are organizations (companies, government agencies, associations and professional societies, academic groups, etc.). The U.S. TAGs strive to be diversified and represent all stakeholders. Membership is open to all organizations with “direct and material interest.” The U.S. TAG members pay a fee to ASA that helps offset about one-half of ASA’s costs to administer the U.S. TAG. (Members of the U.S. TAG to
IEC/TC 29 will also be assessed an additional fee by the USNC to the IEC.) The ASA has a sliding-scale fee schedule that varies by the type and size of the organization and the number of TAGs (or national standards committees) it joins. Membership in a U.S. TAG is unrelated to any person’s indi- vidual membership in ASA.
Each U.S. TAG member organization appoints a person to vote and comment on its behalf. On any given U.S. TAG action, each member should submit one unified set of com- ments and one vote. The voting representative may consult with other experts in that company or organization to decide how to vote, but they have only one vote. Another important function of the U.S. TAG is that it provides the pool of experts who may be appointed to ISO/IEC WGs.
Summary
It is clear that there are many benefits gained from U.S. TAG membership and active participation in the develop- ment of international standards.
• U.S. TAG members have multiple opportunities to influence the content of a standard that they will use. • U.S. TAG members are able to monitor the activity of
the committee to gain advance intelligence about plans for future changes to a standard. It is always bet- ter to be proactive than reactive.
• Participation allows U.S. TAG members to ensure that their products can be exported worldwide.
• International Standards are often used in support of, or in place of, government regulation. Particularly in the case of foreign governments, U.S. TAG members would not generally have any voice in shaping these regulations.
• Participation in the U.S. TAG shows that your compa- ny or organization is a leader in your field.
• And, of course, participation offers a great opportuni- ty to network with other experts in your field.
Visit www.standardsboostbusiness.org to see case studies and learn more about the value of direct participation in the development of International Standards that affect your busi- ness or organization.AT
References
1 ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1: Procedures for the technical work, 8th Edition, Geneva, 2011.
2 ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2: Rules for the structure and drafting of International Standards, 6th Edition, Geneva, 2011.
3 ISO/IEC Directives Supplement—Procedures specific to ISO, 2nd Edition, Geneva, 2011.
4 ISO/IEC Directives Supplement—Procedures specific to IEC, 6th Edition, Geneva, 2011.
5 ISO/IEC Guide 2: 2004 Standardization and related activities— General vocabulary.
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