Introduction

Summary

This chapter conceptualizes technical standards and ICT standards, discussing their types and functions. It then introduces different types of standards development organization (SDOs), focusing in particular on competitive dynamics among standards developers. While discussing ICT standardization as a regime of private transnational governance, this chapter offers a theoretical background on non-State regulatory arrangements and explains how voluntary standards created in different types of SDOs may acquire a binding force. To that end, this chapter reviews the relevant scholarship in the field of global governance, transnational private regulation, and global administrative law, outlining the normative framework of this study.