2024-04-09 22:00:00
Technical standards are an instrument of economic power whose result is the fruit of a consensus under the pressure of multiple interests including lobbies (see the few articles cited in the To know more). They are a source of optional and sometimes mandatory requirements.
We must therefore reconcile what is technical, and therefore sometimes random, with obligations which entail responsibilities.
We are trying here to identify the legal scope of the reference to standards, of their integration into the management of industrial programs in general and the development of products in particular.
Technical standards are often wrongly confused with legal standards whose application is mandatory. The latter, moreover, often call upon the former, which contributes to the confusion of genres. Calls for administrative simplification and a reduction in normative pressure relate more to regulatory standards.
Technical standards are documents whose identification is sometimes uncertain. These are documents, most often taking the form of technical specifications, established as standards by one or more standardization organizations. These organizations are recognized by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In its Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), the WTO defines the standard as follows:
“A document approved by a recognized organization, which provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, compliance with which is not obligatory . It may also deal in part or in whole with terminology, symbols, packaging requirements, marking or labeling, for a given product, process or production method. »
The TBT Agreement (see Note) only concerns technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures relating to products or processes and production methods. However, the standards are not limited to the scope of the TBT agreement on goods. In addition to the associated services and benefits, whether lucrative or not: victim assistance for example, standards can concern the functioning of organizations at the level of their operational and functional processes, including managerial ones: quality, social ethics, social responsibility, sustainable development , resilience, business continuity, security, all subjects generating uncertainty and therefore risks.
Use :
the WTO TBT agreement is supplemented by the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) resulting from the Bali conference in 2013, which entered into force on February 22, 2017 following its ratification by two thirds of the members of the WTO.
Called by national or even international regulations, the legal value of technical standards, particularly in the field of program management, remains unknown to many. The purpose of this article is to remedy this. The organization of standardization and conformity assessment are only discussed for the purposes of this document (see Note).
Use :
for standardization, it is appropriate to refer, if necessary, to decree 2009-697 of June 16, 2009 for the French level, and to EU regulation no. 1025/2012 of October 25, 2012 for the European level.
As for conformity assessment (inspection, certification and accreditation), it is the subject of EU Regulation No. 765/2008.
Standards are collective agreements established within a rigorous framework. Agreements relating to specifications and characteristics which are not necessarily a panacea. Some standards will be popular (see Note), these will be authoritative. On the contrary, others will remain unknown, even contested. Standards are not an absolute state of the art but always the result of a compromise. The use or refusal to use standards is not without consequences.
Use :
for example, ISO 802.11, or more commonly referred to as Wi-Fi.
Technical standards also cover product development, quality and management systems.
We will end by taking standards into account in product development.
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