The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) submitted its comments on the draft guidance document "Social Organization Standardization-Part 2: Evaluation of Good Practice" to the Chinese National Institute of Standardization (CNIS). The promotion of association standards is a key component of China's plan for deepening standardization reform. ANSI requested stakeholder submissions earlier this month. [See the related article on requests for comments].
Based on the ANSI Essential Requirements and accreditation of U.S.-based standards developing organizations, ANSI's feedback to CNIS emphasizes the following key points highlighted in a letter by Joseph Tretler, ANSI's vice president of international policy:
First, ANSI commends the inclusion of openness, transparency, and independence in the document as part of the evaluation of good practice for social organizations. The Institute welcomes the opportunity for the public to provide comments on the social organizations undergoing evaluation. Additionally, ANSI recommends that these important principles of openness, transparency, and independence can be further improved by requiring participation in the standards development process to be open to all persons, including non-members, who are directly and materially affected by the activity in question.
Secondly, ANSI suggests that more clarity be given to the role of the evaluation organization, i.e., the organization evaluating social organizations for good practice. There is insufficient detail as to how an organization can become an evaluation organization or how this evaluation organization interacts with other bodies in the process.
Finally, ANSI continues to strongly encourage references to the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement, in particular, the Code of Good Practice (Annex 3). ANSI encourages reliance on a robust, diverse, and open consensus standards development process, consistent with the WTO TBT principles.
ANSI's original request for comments can be found here. The full text of the draft in Chinese is available and ANSI's reference translation for use by members is also available in English.
ANSI welcomes continued feedback during the reform process. More information on ANSI's China program is available on ANSI's Standards Portal. Related questions and comments can be directed to [email protected].