The ISO/IEC Directives define the basic procedures to be followed in the development of International Standards and other publications.
There are, however, other documents containing guiding principles for standards development, which can also be found below.
Contact us
For questions about the ISO Directives please contact us on directives@iso.org
For any general questions on drafting ISO standards, please contact us on drafting@iso.org
Official Rules
Here are the official rules that state how to develop an ISO standard:
-
ISO/IEC Directives Part 1 and Consolidated ISO Supplement
Official procedures to be followed when developing and maintaining an International Standard and procedures specific to ISO - JTC 1 Supplement
Procedures specific to JTC 1 - ISO/IEC Directives Part 2
Principles to structure and draft documents intended to become International Standards, Technical Specifications or Publicly Available Specifications.
Supplementary Documents
Here are some supplementary documents that may help guide the standards development process:
-
Cooperation with CEN (the Vienna Agreement)
Committees cooperating with CEN under the Vienna Agreement will need to refer to details on this agreement. - Global Relevance
Guidance for how to make sure an International Standard can be implemented as broadly as possible. - Patent Policy
Contains guidance for technical committees in case patent rights matters arise. - Supporting public policy initiatives
ISO's online resource for public policy makers. - Using and referencing ISO and IEC standards to support public policy
The advantages and benefits of using ISO and IEC International Standards to support policy initiatives. - ISO and IEC International Standards - for policy makers
A brief summary of the information found in the brochure "Using and referencing ISO and IEC standards to support public policy". - Normative References (login required)
Individuals developing standards are given access to the standards or normative documents referred to in the ISO/IEC Directives.
Guides
Here is some information about Guides, which provide advice to standards writers and national standards bodies:
- ISO Guides: what they are and what they can help you achieve
- Full list of Guides available in the ISO Catalogue
- Publicly available ISO/IEC Guides
- List of ISO/IEC Guides (please login to view full list)
Guidelines for coding IEC and ISO Standards in NISOSTS [PDF]
These Guidelines describe the XML schema as used by IEC and ISO for the XML versions of published standards.