The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the world's premier international standards body. An independent, non-government international organization, ISO turned 70 on 23 February 2017. On that date in 1947, following discussions about the future of standardization, ISO was officially formed. Its original purpose was to facilitate the coordination and unification of standards developed by its member bodies, all of which were national standardization entities in their respective countries. The founders decided that the organization would be open to every country wanting to collaborate and as a result ISO now includes 163 members from almost every country in the world. ISO's principles for standards development stand on firm foundations - experts within each field collaborate in a consensus-based approach to progress each project through clearly defined stages from proposal through to publication.

Today, the 22,000 international standards overseen by ISO cover almost all conceivable aspects of technology and business. The ISBN Standard is ISO 2108. It sits within ISO's Technical Committee 46 (TC46) - Information and Documentation - and then within TC 46 the ISBN is part of Sub-Committee 9 - Identification and Description. 

The International ISBN Agency has been appointed by ISO as the registration authority for the ISBN system globally. 

The website of ISO can be found at https://www.iso.org.