The OIML is an organization established in 1955 for the implementation of a global metrology system through the elaboration of applicable standards in legal metrology regulations, relating to units of measurement, measurement results and measuring instruments, for use by the national legal metrology authorities of the Member States, to protect industry and consumers in the various activities of tests, analyses, measurements, in the sectors of health, safety, environmental surveillance, production of food and other goods and in their marketing. It has 61 member states and 62 corresponding (observer) states. The OIML carries out regulatory activity in the sense of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. The normative acts of the OIML must therefore be applied by all signatories to this Agreement when they prepare technical regulations, unless such application is not appropriate due to climatic, geographical or technological factors. In practice, as far as Italy and the other EU Member States are concerned, the application of the OIML legislation takes place mainly indirectly through EU legislation: the EU directives and regulations in the sector refer to the OIML legislation, highlighting the points in which the EU legislation reflects and/or is more or less stringent than the OIML one. There are also cases of direct application, when national legislation adopts OIML regulations (e.g. Certificate of basic conformity to OIML R49 Recommendation relating to cold potable water meters). The OIML works through different normative instruments and studies: International Recommendations, conceived to serve as a model of regulations for different categories of measuring instruments; International Documents, which are informative in nature and indicate directives; and a series of supporting documents: Vocabularies, Guides, Basic Publications and Expert Reports. OIML has also developed an OIML CS certification scheme for measuring equipment, which is recognized by member states participating in the certification scheme. The OIML Secretariat consists of the International Bureau of Legal Metrology (BIML), which ensures the organization of meetings of the main bodies and Working Groups, as well as the supervision and coordination of the technical activities of the Organization, including the supervision of the implementation of the decisions of the Conference and the Committee.
The General Manager is Anthony Donnellan, assisted by two Deputy Directors and six heads of various administrative, IT and financial services. The main bodies are the International Conference on Legal Metrology; the International Committee of Legal Metrology (CIML), which constitutes the decision-making body of the Organization and approves, among other things, work programs and financial reports; Technical Committees, Sub-committees and Project Groups, which prepare the technical and regulatory documents of the Organization. Legal metrology is one of the macro-industrial policy instruments for which the MiSE is competent, which, in the metrology sector, maintains institutional relations with the Chambers of Commerce, the European Union, international scientific bodies and metrological institutes; to ascertain the metrological conformity of some categories of measuring instruments; to carry out the administrative activities relating to the International Measurement System and the National Calibration System; to retain the prototype samples of national units of measurement; regulatory, interpretative and guidance activity; to carry out studies and research in the field of legal metrology and the regulation of fineness and identification marks of precious metals; to coordinate the supervision and control of measuring instruments in the area to which around 300 metric inspectors, over 1500 technical centers (for digital tachographs) and 4000 workshops (for analog tachographs), almost 500 accredited bodies and laboratories (for fuel distributors, weighing instruments, users of the sector) are dedicated. At the MiSE, the responsible office is Division XIII – Technical regulations – of the General Directorate for the market, competition, consumer protection and technical regulations. The OIML and the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) collaborate regularly, both operating in the metrology sector, maintaining distinct competences: the OIML has legal and technical-administrative competences while the BIPM is responsible for the studies of issues related to the measurement of physical quantities. The collaboration between the BIPM and OIML is enshrined in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both organizations with UNIDO in 2008. The two organizations meet in joint committees and have a regular exchange of information