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Mutual information is necessary in international
legal metrology. It allows:
- regulators to compare their own regulations or draft regulations
with those adopted in other countries,
- conformity assessment bodies to compare their technical experience
with that of other bodies,
- enforcement bodies to know which technical or organizational difficulties
have been encountered in other countries, and
- instrument manufacturers to know which requirements they have to
comply with when they export their products and which administrative
procedures have to be followed.
Developing information was one of the first objectives
assigned to the OIML in the Treaty; information is circulated by the
OIML through three media:
- the OIML Bulletin, in which experts contribute papers
on various legal metrology related issues, technical issues, innovations
and new trends in the organization of national legal metrology, etc.,
- the OIML web site, which provides names and addresses
of contacts in Member States and Corresponding Members, including
their web site addresses, and which publishes information on congresses
and seminars of interest for those involved in legal metrology, and
- discussion within Technical Committees and Subcommittees
(TCs/SCs), where participants may exchange experience and information
on technical issues; such discussions are enhanced by fora on the
OIML web site, where each TC/SC now has its own discussion forum.
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Harmonization
of legal metrology regulations is the second of the OIML's objectives,
ensuring worldwide consumer protection and facilitating the trade of
measuring instruments, prepackages and commodities.
Member States spend significant resources on harmonization
activities, including OIML work, which results in the production of
a number of OIML publications, notably:
- International Recommendations, which are
model legal metrology regulations that Member States should follow
when they develop and implement national regulations, and
- International Documents, which are more informative
in nature and which address technical issues as well as organizational
or legal issues.
OIML Member States are morally obliged to implement
Recommendations to the greatest extent possible (Article VIII of the
OIML Convention), which means that their national legal metrology regulations
must be compatible with the provisions of the relevant OIML Recommendation(s).
The OIML is an observer on the WTO/TBT Committee, and
OIML Recommendations are considered to be international standards in
the sense of Article 2.4 of the TBT Agreement.
All OIML publications may be downloaded free of charge
on the OIML web site.
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