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Reference to Standards

This bilingual (English/Russian) publication presents the results of the international conference on “standards and Regulatory Systems” organized by UNECE on 19 November 2013 in Geneva in cooperation with the Russian Union of Industrialist and Entrepreneurs.


Legislators and authorities have long acknowledged that making use of standards is often more cost efficient and expedient than classical legislative tools. In fact, to regulate economic and productive activities without making use of standards is now the exception, rather than the rule and, in a number of fields, it is simply unimaginable. Thus, the question is no longer whether to use standards in regulations but “how” best to use them?


To provide some answers, regulators, representatives of standards-setting bodies, business executives and representatives from civil society discussed the following issues: the difference between exclusive and indicative reference to standards in regulations; how access to standards referenced in regulations needs to be granted to the general public; and the impact on the standards setting bodies and on the intellectual property embodied in the standard.


The publication is available at: http://www.unece.org/index.php?id=36308

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