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UNCLAS STATE 055239 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD WTRO ECON
SUBJECT: DEMARCHE REQUEST: USG CONCERNS ON ISO SOCIAL 
RESPONSIBILITY DRAFT STANDARD 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  Department requests Post approach host government 
officials to underscore serious USG concerns with the 
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) draft 
standard on social responsibility (ISO 26000).  As USG 
concerns are extremely broad, Post is requested to engage not 
only host government standards officials, but also trade 
ministry officials dealing with the World Trade Organization 
(WTO) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), as well as 
foreign ministry officials responsible for human rights and 
international law issues.  Post may draw upon the background 
below as well as the non-paper (para 8), which may be left 
with host government officials.  End Summary. 
 
OBJECTIVES 
---------- 
 
¶2.  Department instructs Embassy to pursue the following 
objectives: 
 
-- Inform host government officials of USG concerns regarding 
ISO 26000's potential ramifications in the areas of trade 
(WTO TBT Agreement) and international law (e.g. human rights); 
 
-- If they share our concerns, encourage host government 
officials to meet with their national standards bodies that 
are ISO members and underscore these concerns; 
 
-- Suggest host government take stock of its representation 
in their ISO member body participation in the ISO 26000 
Social Responsibility Activity.  Suggest it elevate or 
increase attendance as appropriate to ensure relevant expert 
government perspectives are integrated into the process of 
developing this standard, which is different from the process 
typically used to develop ISO standards.  Ideally, host 
government would be prepared to participate through its 
national body at the next Working Group meeting on September 
1-6, 2008, in Santiago, Chile; 
 
-- Seek host government agreement to press for accountability 
and consideration of shared government concerns within the 
working group; 
 
-- Provide Post's assessment of the coordination within host 
government agencies on the ISO 26000 process, and possible 
effective avenues for increased engagement to advance the USG 
message. 
 
REPORTING DEADLINE 
------------------ 
 
¶3.  Post should report results of these efforts by cable 
slugged for EEB/TPP/MTA (AScheibe), USTR (JDoherty), EPA 
(MMckiel), and DOC (HHijikata and JStradtman) before May 28. 
 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
 
¶4.  The development of the ISO 26000 standard on social 
responsibility dates to 2005, with the formation of a working 
group comprised of six "stakeholder" groups (including 
industry, government, NGOs, etc.).  The draft ISO standard is 
now at a crucial stage of consideration (known as Working 
Draft 4, or WD 4), where consensus drafting of the standard 
by stakeholder experts will soon move to consensus approval 
by ISO member bodies.  It is essential that significant 
concerns with the standard's content are addressed in the 
very near future, before the document advances to later 
stages.  The next iteration of the draft standard (WD 4.2) is 
due out June 2.  The attached non-paper (para 8) contains 
additional background on the ISO process and ISO 26000 in 
particular.  Both the non-paper and the Working Draft 4 
document are also available on the State Intranet at 
http://eb.state.gov/shortcut.cfm/DQS in the "ISO 26000 
Demarche Documents" box. 
 
¶5.  The U.S. Government has serious concerns with the 
substantive content of the WD 4 document.  In our view, these 
concerns are compounded by procedural issues that reduce the 
drafter's accountability to stakeholder concerns and make it 
difficult to fix problems in the text.  In April, the USG 
submitted a letter to the Working Group facilitators as well 
as ISO leadership detailing many of our procedural and 
substantive concerns.  (The letter is also available on the 
State Intranet at the link above)  The USG is not convinced 
consensus is possible on the highly-charged policy issues 
contained in the current draft.  However, we believe the 
process should facilitate the work that must be done on the 
heart of substantive issues to ensure any outcome is truly a 
consensus product. 
 
¶6.  The substantive concerns of the USG regarding the content 
of the draft ISO 26000 standard include the following: 
 
-- The current ISO 26000 draft is problematic because it is 
replete with innumerable misstatements and 
mischaracterizations of international law.  The draft delves 
into complex and controversial subject matter over which the 
drafters have inadequate expertise and no authority, and 
often presents novel or controversial interpretations of 
international law as settled matters.  Some of the draft's 
statements on international human rights law, international 
environmental law, and other matters are mere statements of 
opinion or belief that should not be characterized as 
representing an "international standard." 
 
-- The latest draft's legal characterizations are 
particularly problematic with respect to its human rights 
content.  The draft inappropriately transplants state 
responsibilities on human rights to non-state actors, which 
are not proper subjects of international human rights law. 
International human rights law has been drafted such that the 
legal obligations generally apply to government actors (e.g., 
to not take measures that impair freedom of expression). 
Replacing "government" with "organization", as the draft 
frequently does, may be entirely inappropriate, or even 
nonsensical.  The USG believes the current draft's approach 
is fundamentally flawed, and would likely be invoked against 
USG interests in domestic courts and international fora. 
 
-- Publication of the ISO 26000 standard could be especially 
problematic from an international trade perspective because 
international standards play an important role in the WTO TBT 
Agreement.  International standards are often the basis for 
technical regulations (mandatory standards) promulgated by 
countries because technical regulations that meet one of the 
legitimate objectives listed in the TBT Agreement (see non 
paper) and that are in accordance with relevant international 
standards are presumed not to create unnecessary obstacles to 
trade under the TBT Agreement.  Although ISO 26000 is clearly 
not intended for adoption into law by governments, should a 
government either reference it or mandate compliance with it, 
it could be binding, irrespective of the original intent 
expressed by the drafters.  ISO 26000 could therefore be 
misused with a view to undermining the purpose, effect, and 
operation of the TBT Agreement, with the result of creating, 
rather than preventing, unnecessary obstacles to internatio 
nal trade. 
 
-- The current draft sets out to establish so-called 
"Principles of Social Responsibility" and then includes 
several principles on which there is no international 
consensus.  In fact, several such "principles" are at odds 
with both existing international treaties and standards and 
could have a significant commercial impact.  For example, the 
so-called "precautionary approach" and "polluter pays" 
concepts do not rise to the status of principles of 
international law, and are still subject to discussions or 
decisions in other fora over their proper application.  The 
USG believes the use of the term "principle" is an effort to 
elevate these and other concepts to a higher status in the 
context of international governance and circumvent the 
efforts in other fora. 
 
¶7.  Given its current content, the USG believes that 
publication of the ISO 26000 document as a "standard" would 
be problematic.  Further, while the draft states that the 
standard is not intended or appropriate for certification 
purposes, it is written throughout in an overly prescriptive 
manner that will inevitably invite such inappropriate 
conformity assessments by certification or other bodies 
(e.g., stating that an organization is ISO 26000 
"compliant"). 
 
¶8.  Begin Non-Paper on ISO 26000 
 
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), one 
of several international standardizing bodies, is a 
non-governmental organization established in 1947.  On its 
website, http://www.iso.org, ISO describes itself as:  "... a 
network of the national standards institutes of 157 
countries, one member per country, with a Central Secretariat 
in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system. "  The 
national standards institutes of many countries are 
government bodies.  The U.S. member body is the American 
National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is a private 
sector federation whose members include a number of federal 
agencies as well as industry, consumers, non-government 
organizations and academics. 
 
ISO's work program "ranges from standards for traditional 
activities, such as agriculture and construction, through 
mechanical engineering, manufacturing and distribution, to 
transport, medical devices, information and communication 
technologies, and to standards for good management practice 
and for services." 
 
ISO standards are developed in consensus-based committees and 
are voluntary in and of themselves since ISO has no authority 
to require or enforce the standards it publishes.  Some ISO 
standards support verification by third party certification 
bodies.  The primary focus of ISO standards activities over 
the years has been to harmonize technical and other 
product-related elements to facilitate trade.  For example, 
harmonized international standards, when implemented by 
businesses around the world, help ensure global availability 
of product replacement parts.  However, ISO standards are 
also adopted by governments into regulations or used in 
contracts or other legitimate and enforceable vehicles. 
Increasingly in the past few years ISO members have voted to 
develop standards that move from traditional technical areas 
into those that have greater public policy implications. 
 
 
Under the Technical Barriers to Trade agreement (TBT 
Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), technical 
regulations) that are prepared, adopted or applied for one of 
the legitimate objectives explicitly  mentioned in the TBT 
Agreement and that are in accordance with relevant 
international standards are given a rebuttable presumption of 
conformity as not creating unnecessary obstacles to trade. 
Legitimate objectives under the TBT Agreement include: 
national security requirements; the prevention of deceptive 
practices; the protection of human health or safety, animal 
or plant life or health, or the environment. 
 
Adoption and use of ISO and other international standards to 
achieve regulatory objectives or to access specific markets 
can and does have an impact on commercial trade flows.  In 
some cases, where ISO standards support a particular 
country's regulations, adoption of the standards can 
disadvantage third countries exports to that market. 
Adoption can displace exports from third country members or 
result in additional costs to enter the market. 
 
The subject of this communication is an ISO standard 
currently under development on the subject of Social 
Responsibility.  This initiative was originally proposed to 
ISO as a standard on corporate social responsibility by its 
policy advisory committee on consumer issues (known as 
COPOLCO) in 2002.  Since this proposal emanated only from the 
consumer interest perspective, ISO explored the possibilities 
for this potential standard in a multi-stakeholder Strategic 
Advisory Group from 2003 through 2005.  The results of this 
exploration across stakeholder categories was a 
recommendation that ISO embark on developing such a standard, 
under certain conditions such as ensuring proper expert 
participation and balanced stakeholder input, subject to 
broader endorsement at an international conference and via 
voting by all ISO member countries. 
 
This broader endorsement was achieved in 2005 and a special 
working group (referred to as the WGSR) was formed to develop 
an ISO standard on social responsibility.  In order to 
support proper and balanced stakeholder expert participation, 
ISO decided to require participating member bodies to name up 
to six experts to participate, one from each of six 
identified and agreed stakeholder categories (industry, 
government, labor, consumers, NGOs, and other interests). 
Under this arrangement, the WGSR has been advancing its work 
since early 2006.  The draft ISO standard is now at a crucial 
stage of consideration, where consensus drafting of the 
standard by stakeholder experts will soon move to stages of 
consensus approval of the draft standard by ISO member 
bodies.  It is important that significant concerns with the 
standard's content are addressed in the very near future, 
before the document advances to later stages. 
 
In considering the implications of the ISO standard for 
Social Responsibility currently under development, trade and 
other international governmental experts should be aware that 
the resultant document may reflect regulatory principles and 
policies that are inconsistent with their own regulatory 
regime.  Further, and more potentially troublesome, the SR 
document ventures, without benefit of legal review, into 
areas that are addressed by intergovernmental agreements and 
can have the effect of re-interpreting existing agreements, 
all within the context of an international standard. 
Moreover, U.S. industry has serious concerns about this 
standard, which if adopted and incorporated into WTO Member 
country laws as a mandatory technical regulation could 
constitute a significant trade barrier. 
 
We greatly appreciate your careful consideration of our 
concerns.  If you do agree with our concerns on this draft 
ISO standard, please let us know, but please also work with 
the ISO member organization (national standards body) in your 
country so that it is  aware and its positions and comments 
may be informed and influenced by your input.  Contact 
information on the ISO member organization (national 
standards body) for your country is available online at the 
following location: 
 
http://www.iso.org/iso/about/iso members.htm 
 
End Non-Paper 
 
POINT OF CONTACT 
---------------- 
 
¶9.  Please contact Aaron Scheibe in the Bureau of Economic, 
Energy, and Business Affairs at (202) 647-8202 or via e-mail, 
or USTR's Julia Doherty (Julia Doherty@USTR.EOP.GOV) for any 
further background information or argumentation to meet our 
objectives. 
RICE