Commitments of Member Countries

By joining the ISO a member government would have to abide by the following two legal obligations:

1) Under Article 26, each member must pay its contributions to the annual administrative budget in accordance with its respective constitutional procedures.

2) Under Article 32, paragraph 2, each member must supply on a monthly and annual basis its statistical data in relation to its production, consumption and trade. The usual procedure is for a country to accede to the ISA (Article 38) which can sometimes be a rather lengthy governmental process, due to ratification by Parliament or Congress.

It is however, also possible for a country to join the ISA by applying the Agreement provisionally. The notification of provisional application allows a country to participate, with all rights and obligations, as a full member (Article 39).The official languages of the Organization are English, French, Russian and Spanish.