In the 1990s, the expansion of international and regional trade agreements brought changes in the concept of national borders. The rapid development and growth of information and communication systems also contributed to the expansion of markets to cover the world. These changes in the trading environment encouraged companies and organizations to look beyond their own borders for optimum sources of supply and a wider market. This led to the necessity to distribute raw materials, merchandise, investment capital, and technology freely all over the world.
For products and services to circulate freely, it is necessary to remove unnecessary barriers to trade. When standards are different in one country from another, free sourcing and distribution is impeded. Differences in standards become non-tariff barriers. It became necessary, therefore, to create a mechanism to ensure that different standards and conformity assessment procedures in each country did not constitute Technical Barriers to Trade – i.e. they did not cause undue impediment to the circulation of goods and services. This issue was addressed during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement), concluded in 1995 by all members of the WTO, aims at worldwide harmonization of standards and conformity assessment procedures.



The TBT Agreement requires each WTO member country to ensure that: any regulations or legislation that impact on trade do not create unnecessary barriers to trade; any standards for products, systems or processes should be based on international standards where these exist; and to notify the WTO TBT Secretariat of the content of any such regulation and/or standard in order to ensure transparency.
As a result, a system is now in place to encourage each member country to adopt standards (domestic standards/national standards) that are harmonized with international standards.
You may be wondering what the difference is between "international standards" and "domestic or national standards". International standards are standards that are established by international organizations whose door is open to all countries in the world, and are applied internationally. Typical international standards are those developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC). Domestic and national standards, on the other hand, are standards that are established by a national government or organizations licensed by a national government as a domestic standardization organization. In Japan, two bodies are licensed to develop national standards: Japan Industrial Standards (JIS) and Japan Agricultural Standards (JAS).
Following the conclusion of the TBT Agreement, WTO member countries have agreed to base their national standards on international standards, where these exist. New international standards are developed on a consensus basis by international standardization bodies, such as the ISO and adopted by ISO member countries for use within their national territory. In other words, Japanese JIS standards are in conformity with ISO standards. The ISO 9000 series of standards and ISO 14001, for example, are officially published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), but in Japan they are translated verbatim into Japanese and are published as JIS standards.
Today, more than a hundred countries have adopted the ISO 9000 series of standards as their national standards for quality management systems. The environmental management system standard, ISO 14001, has also been adopted for use in many countries. There are also many hundreds of international product standards and standards for other systems and processes that are in use throughout the world, including standard test methods for testing laboratories.




The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was founded in 1947 as an international organization to develop and publish international standards for all fields except electrical for use mainly among European countries. A separate body working in close co-operation with the ISO, the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), is responsible for standardization in the electrical and electronic engineering sectors. In the 1980s, however, the importance of international standards in trade was recognized and ISO membership spread beyond Europe to cover the world. This process gained extra impetus after conclusion of the WTO TBT Agreement. Today, more than 140 signatory countries participate in the development of ISO standards.


In Europe, the Comite Europeen de Normalisation (CEN), is responsible for standardization in fields other than electrical and electronic engineering. In 1991, an agreement concerning mutual technical cooperation in standards development (Agreement of Vienna), was concluded between the ISO and CEN to ensure harmonization between standards developed in Europe and standards developed by the international body.




While the harmonization of standards to facilitate international trade was in progress, moves were also underway to harmonize conformity assessment schemes by establishing “mutual recognition " among trading partners. Mutual recognition is when two or more countries agree to accept the results of conformity assessment carried out in the partner country based on the criteria of the country and vice versa, even though the conformity assessment procedures in each country may be different. Mutual Recognition Agreements between governments relate to the mandatory or regulated sector.