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being prepared by 10 different working units’.
52
When his final term of office expired, after
14 consecutive years as Chair at the end of 2012, Shackleton was replaced by Mr Mathias
Lundin (Sweden).
Lundin’s initial bedding-in period was relatively quiet from a technical
point of viewandhad the backingof some highly competent
members of WG-STAND including Vice-Chair Mr Kin-
ichi Matsuyama (Japan), Mr Dave Fink (USA), Ing.
Henk Bodt (The Netherlands), Mr Robert Shaw (USA),
Mr Jérôme Dietsch (France), as well as Kotecki, Davis
and Ziegenfuss. This was to change markedly at the
ISO/TC 44 plenary meeting in Tokyo, held over two
days during July 2014, whenGermany suggested
moving standards just published from Route II
to Route I on the basis that the latter did not have
target dates, which was considered an advantage
for standards that required considerably more
research before publication.
53
At this meeting there was
an undocumented discussion followed by a resolution
proposing to cancel the Route II option for IIW and
to transfer all IIW Route II documents to Route I.
54
This was the very antithesis to what IIW had fought
for from its earliest days leading up to the approval of IIW as
an international standardising body in accordance with ISO
resolution 19/1984. Despite the absence of key participants,
including Mr Frédéric Lobinger, Chair of ISO/TC 44,
Lundin, Chair of WG-STAND and Swedish delegate
to the committee, the resolution of ISO/TC 44 (Tokyo
13/2014) was approved unanimously with no dissenting
voices.
55
The means of doing this was of great concern since
it presented the most serious challenge to IIW’s status as a standardising body. Shackleton
did say later that apparently the UK was aware that such a discussion would take place even
though nothing was raised before the meeting and neither was it on the agenda. His brief
was to transfer all Route II standards to Route I but not to end the agreement.
56
Kotecki immediately sprang to the defence of IIW in a letter to Lobinger as soon as
he was aware of the resolution and the outcome that Route II would be cancelled and IIW be
retained as a pre-standardising body only, developing Route I drafts as appropriate.
57
In his
letter he noted that considerable trust had been built up over the previous 15 years between
Robert Shaw
Henk Bodt