43. The secretariat reported on the meeting organized with the ISO secretariat to consider the issues raised during the 160th session of WP.29 (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1104, paras. 54-55) on the non-availability of former and draft versions of such standards as well as the non-availability of the referenced standards free of charge, affecting the transparency of the UN Regulations, UN GTRs and UN Rules.

44. The representative of ISO noted the issues raised and agreed to consider them with WP.29 and its secretariat.

45. The representative of the United States of America referred to the guidelines OMB Circular No. A-199. He added that the background material used for supporting the redaction and establishment of a standard was a key element for the assessment of the standard prior to its incorporation by reference into a regulation and should, therefore, be available to regulatory bodies. He added that the intellectual property restrictions on private standards should not apply when governments were participating in the funding or research for the establishment of a private standard.

46. WP.29 noted that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) had announced on 28 October 2013 the official launch of the ANSI IBR Portal, a free online tool with read-only access to standards that have been incorporated by reference into federal laws.

47. WP.29 also noted that an International Conference on “Standards and Regulatory Frameworks” would be held on 19 November 2013 in the framework of the session of the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6 of the UNECE Trade Division). The Conference would present global best practices in the use of standards in regulatory work and review, in particular, the Recommendation D on “Reference to Standards” (ECE/TRADE/C/WP.6/2013/5). The World Forum requested the secretariat to represent WP.29 in the noted conference to: (i) share the experience of WP.29 on the incorporation by reference of private standards into regulations, (ii) stress the need of cooperation of standards developing organizations with regulatory bodies to ensure regulatory transparency, and (iii) suggest the “read-only” access of standards referenced in the regulations through “reading rooms” (similar to the ANSI IBR portal referenced above) hosted by trusted organizations, such as the United Nations.