The TBT Committee's Six Principles for the development of international standards: Are they still relevant?

Aik Hoe LIM is Director of the Trade and Environment Division at the World Trade Organization and oversees its work on trade and environment, as well as on the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. He joined the WTO in 1999 and has served in the External Relations Division, the Director-General's Office and the Trade in Services Division. He was previously Counsellor to two WTO Director-Generals, Adviser to the Director General’s Consultative Group, and Secretary to WTO committees, working groups and negotiating bodies on services trade and domestic regulation. His principal areas of interest and expertise are on technical barriers to trade, standards, trade and sustainable development, services trade policy, and trade and regulation.

Sergio Mujica joined ISO as Secretary-General in July 2017, having spent 7 years at the World Custom’s Organization (WCO) as Deputy Secretary-General. The WCO aims to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of Custom’s administrations worldwide, and within this role Mr Mujica was responsible for the design and implementation of the WCO’s strategic plan. This included simplification, harmonization and standardization of custom’s procedures in addition to capacity building initiatives aimed at the WCO members. This gave him significant experience in an international setting, building consensus within a large membership-based organization. Prior to working at the World Customs Organization, Mr Mujica spent 15 years working for the Government of Chile with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and as the Director General of Chile Customs. A Chilean national, he has a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and a master's degree in International Law from the American University in Washington DC.

Mary Saunders leads ANSI’s efforts to advocate greater use of voluntary consensus standards and conformance programs by government agencies and broader participation by agency personnel in standards development. She works with ANSI members to create standardization-related outreach programs to legislators and to increase understanding of the private-sector standards community among agencies involved in trade and commerce issues. Mary is a key player at ANSI in fostering understanding among opinion leaders of the major role standards and conformance play in the international and domestic marketplace.

Ms Saunders has extensive federal government executive-level experience and served in a variety of positions within the Department of Commerce prior to joining the ANSI staff, most recently as the Associate Director for Management Resources at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As Director of NIST’s Standards Coordination Office, she represented NIST and its significant interests in the standards and conformity assessment community, advising the NIST Director and other officials throughout the Administration on policy and strategy as they relate to the federal government’s role in standardization. 

Shawn Paulsen became IEC Vice-President and Chair of the IEC Conformity Assessment Board (CAB) on 1 January 2018. In this position, he is responsible for the overall conformity assessment work of the IEC.  Currently, Paulsen is the Manager of Conformity Assessment within the CSA Group in Canada. He previously served as the Chief Electrical Inspector (Provincial Electrical Regulator) in the Department of Public Safety for the Province of New Brunswick, Canada. In this role, Paulsen was the Provincial representative on national codes, standards and conformity assessment committees.

With a career spanning over 35 years, Paulsen has significant experience in technical and policy standards work at both the national and international levels. He has been involved in the work of a number of organizations including the Canadian Standards Association, IEEE, International Association of Electrical Inspectors (IAEI), ANSI, the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), and the Canadian Advisory Council on Electrical Safety. Paulsen has been a member of the IEC Conformity Assessment Board since 2012 and has served as the Canadian representative to IECEE and IECRE. Paulsen was recently awarded the IEC 1906 Award for his commitment to international conformity assessment through his involvement with the IECEE.

Paulsen holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and also holds licenses as a Professional Engineer and as an industrial/commercial construction electrician.

Eve has been the Director General of the Standards Association of Zimbabwe since 2008. Although she has been at the helm of SAZ for the past 12 years, her overall industry experience spans over 25 years in the public and private sectors. Eve is past President of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO), the Pan African intergovernmental standards bureau that was formed by African Union in 1977 that is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya (2016-2019). Eve’s current role as ARSO Council Member and Champion for Southern Africa is to drive standardisation harmonisation efforts on the continent with the aim to promote inter and intra African trade under AfCFTA. In partnership with ARSO and IEEE-SA, Eve is Chairing the 4th Industrial Revolution Strategy for Africa (A4IR) project to support digital transformation of the continent under the single AfCFTA market which is now set officially to come into force in January 2021. Eve is Member of ISO DEVCO Chairman’s Advisory Group representing the interests of Eastern and Southern Africa.

Devin McDaniels has served as Economic Affairs Officer in the Trade and Environment Division of the World Trade Organization since 2011. He is the deputy-Secretary of the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade Committee. He advises WTO Member governments on issues at the intersection of standards, regulation and trade. He holds degrees in economics, international relations and environmental policy from the University of British Columbia and the University of Oxford.