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Standards and standards organizations in the international free trade regime

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Knowledge, Technology & Policy

Abstract

With the evolution of an international free trade regime in telecommunications the economic significance of technical standards has been broadly acknowledged. But their evaluation has remained somewhat diffuse due to the ambivalent nature of standards that can facilitate as well as impede international trade. Focussing on the World Trade Organization (WTO) this article examines the role of technical standards and the principles according to which standards and standardization organizations are assessed. The WTO’s view is extremely formal and restricted and remarkably mismatched with the contemporary hybrid international standards regime.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Max-Planck-Institute für Gesellschaftsforschung (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies), Cologne, Germany

    Raymund Werle (principal research associate)

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  1. Raymund Werle
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He is co-author with Susanne Schmidt of Coordinating Technology: Studies in the International Standardization of Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998. His research is focused on the institutional conditions and the structural consequences of technological and scientific innovations, in particular in the information and telecommunications technology industry: this includes the development and standardization of telecommunications and data networks, the Internet in particular, and the structural and social consequences of the developments in those areas.

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Werle, R. Standards and standards organizations in the international free trade regime. Know Techn Pol 14, 127–140 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-001-1020-7

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