What is Hard Law

Standardization is one source of informal rules that regulate the public realm: standards are not legally-binding, but, as soft law instruments, they influence the governance, ethics, and conduct of companies. Standardization brings unique benefits to companies in term of knowledge, credibility, and risk reduction by bringing accountability and predictability. To foster active participation of companies in standardization, higher and continuous education in standardization is essential to build mutual understanding between companies and the standardization world since decision making in the former is a relatively quick top-down hierarchical process while in the latter time-consuming consensus-building is the norm. The concept of Student Standardization Societies (SSS) is introduced as the best way to promote standardization in the long term, and advice is given for the practical implementation of SSS and their relationship with Official Standardization Organizations.