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International standards are standards developed by international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use, worldwide.

International standards may be used either by direct application or by a process of modifying an international standard to suit local conditions. The adoption of international standards results in the creation of equivalent, national standards that are substantially the same as international standards in technical content, but may have (i) editorial differences as to appearance, use of symbols and measurement units, substitution of a point for a comma as the decimal marker, and (ii) differences resulting from conflicts in governmental regulations or industry-specific requirements caused by fundamental climatic, geographical, technological, or infrastructural factors, or the stringency of safety requirements that a given standard authority considers appropriate.

International standards is one way of overcoming technical barriers in international commerce caused by differences among technical regulations and standards developed independently and separately by each nation, national standards organisation, or company. Technical barriers arise when different groups come together, each with a large user base, doing some well established thing that between them is mutually incompatible. Establishing international standards is one way of preventing or overcoming this problem.

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[edit] Merged links

These links are all into Standards organization, and is primarily about organizations, not about standards.

See also

• International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and List of ISO standards
• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and List of IEC standards
• Standards Organisations
• Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
• Ecma International (ECMA) and List of Ecma standards
• International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Category:ITU-T recommendations
• British Standards Institution
• ASTM International
• Open standard
• Standardisation
• American Petroleum Institute
• International System of Units (SI Units)
• Universal Postal Union (UPU) and Catalogue of UPU Standards

External links

• The ISO Web Site (International Organization for Standardization)
• The IEC Web Site (International Electrotechnical Commission)
• The ITU Web Site (International Telecommunication Union)
• The ASTM Web Site (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials, founded 1898)
• The CENELEC Web Site (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation)
• The ANSI Web Site (American National Standards Institute)
• The BSI Web Site (British Standards Institution)
• (German) The DIN Web Site
• The BIS Web Site
• The ECMA website (Ecma International)
• The IPC Web Site
• The OASIS website
• The SAE Web Site (Society for Automotive Engineers)
• The AIAG Web Site
• The IEEE Web Site (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)
• The MediaGrid Web Site (International Media Grid Standards Organisation)
• The API Web Site (American Petroleum Institute)
• The UPU Web Site (Universal Postal Union)
• The IETF Web Site (Internet Engineering Task Force)