Governance
Constitutional organs and committees
IAASO governance is layered by design: constitutional matters cannot be quietly transformed through administrative convenience, and no committee rule or administrative directive may override the Constitutional Charter. The full constitutional layer — charter text, membership and ratification records — lives at iaaso.foundation.
1Charter in brief
The Constitutional Charter constitutes IAASO as the standards, certification, accreditation and public trust framework for autonomous agents and agent-based systems, established under the UUAID Foundation with a non-vendor identity and a public-interest boundary. Its foundational principles include open standards, evidence before certification, interoperability over fragmentation, continuous assurance over static trust, institutional neutrality, crypto-agility, due process, and decentralized continuity.
The hierarchy of authority is fixed: the Constitutional Charter of IAASO; the Constitutional Charter of the UUAID Foundation where applicable; duly ratified governance resolutions; the Standards Governance Manual; committee operating rules; and finally administrative guidance. Anti-capture protections, transparency obligations and appeals paths are constitutional, not discretionary.
2Governance bodies
General Assembly
High-level legitimacy and constitutional review body. Ratifies major constitutional amendments, approves structural changes and confirms decentralization milestones.
Standards Council
Central coordinating body for standards governance. Charters committees, assigns drafts, harmonizes terminology, approves stage advancement and recommends standards for ratification.
Technical Committees
The main authoring and subject-matter bodies. Each maintains a scoped charter, a standards work queue, documented meetings and public change records.
Accreditation and Certification Council
Governs accreditation criteria and decisions, evaluator recognition, certification process discipline and quality-assurance controls.
Public Trust and Ethics Forum
Advises on public-interest implications, fairness, harmful standards consequences, procedural legitimacy and ecosystem concentration risk.
Appeals and Review Board
Hears accreditation denials, certification disputes, suspension and revocation appeals, and contested governance interpretations.
Secretariat
Process administration, records coordination, publication support and workflow tracking. Holds no unilateral authority over substantive standards outcomes.
3Technical committees
Technical Committees author and maintain the standards corpus. The initial committee structure follows the first standards family; committees are chartered by the Standards Council as work formally begins.
| Committee | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|
| TC-1 Identity and Resolution | IAASO-1001 | Forming |
| TC-2 Trust Profiles and Credentials | IAASO-1101, IAASO-1301 | Forming |
| TC-3 Security and Runtime Governance | IAASO-1201 | Forming |
| TC-4 Evidence and Transparency | IAASO-1401 | Forming |
| TC-5 Accreditation and Conformity | IAASO-1501 | Forming |
| TC-6 Cryptography and Post-Quantum Readiness | IAASO-1601 | Forming |
4How standards advance
Drafts move through a thirteen-stage lifecycle — from Proposal through Working Draft, Committee Draft, Public Review Draft and Council Review Draft to Ratified Standard, then Maintenance Release, Superseded, Deprecated and Archived. Every stage transition records the prior stage, new stage, decision date, approving body, approval method and rationale. See the standards catalog for the current stage of each standard.