How do we define an international standard? Which qualifications must an international standard have? Strict definition of an international standard is based on whether it is published by international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or similar (Swann, 2010). In general, international standards are broadly defined as set of rules that regulates production of targeted products, organizations and markets via being common to a group of countries. However, different from regulations, international standards is voluntary. Whereas compliance with regulations is mandatory by law.
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Considering trade in international markets, implementation of standards may cause discrimination between domestic and foreign suppliers or within domestic suppliers (Maur & Shepherd, 2011). International standards represent an additional source of costs for the exporter country if they settled in importer countries (Maskus, et al., 2005). Moreover, diversity and multitude of international standards create impediments to market access causing inefficiencies in international trade. Because, exporter firms must stand certain level of fixed costs in adapting their production process up to many international standards. This obviously increases costs of firms. Fixed costs that exporters face with due to standardization discourage them in accessing foreign markets and reduces variety of the products exported by non-EU countries (Shepherd, 2007). One of the solution to such inefficiencies is harmonization of international standards among nations. That can be sustained if there is a coordination between countries in implementing trade policies. However, countries should also consider the negative effects of harmonization of standards on product