Globalization and Technology Standards: The Case for Expanded U.S. Leadership

Globalization has changed not just the face of technology-based competition but, by implication, the face of global standardization. Standards are key to efficient, widespread deployment of new technologies and innovations, and increasingly they play a key role in determining global market access and national competitiveness. As traditional aspects of trade are minimized (e.g., tariff barriers) standards are playing a more central role in trade. Indeed, not only does the current global framework for standardization include trade agreements (including WTO Agreements and a multiplicity of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements) but the drive by many economies to become standards leaders, and in some cases to use standards for mercantilist ends.

Please join us on January 13, 2009 for a breakfast forum on Globalization and Technology Standards as four internationally recognized experts in the field provide an overview of the global framework for standardization, and the respective roles of the government and private sector in the United States in setting direction for the U.S. standards system and its interface with the global system.