ISO/TC 223
ISO/TC 223 Societal security was a technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization formed in 2001 to develop standards in the area of societal security: i.e. protection of society from and response to incidents, emergencies, and disasters caused by intentional and unintentional human acts, natural hazards, and technical failures. The sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk to the bottom of the Barents Sea in 2000 can be cited as a major impetus for the formation of ISO/TC 223. The international salvage operation that followed the accident provided painful evidence that the international community lacked the tools necessary to cooperate effectively in emergency situations, resulting in an initiative from the Russian standards organization, GOST, to establish ISO/TC 223. Originally titled Civil defence, the committee was created to standardize international emergency procedures. The initiative lay dormant for some time. However, terrorist actions, including the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, as well as a surge in natural disasters in recent years, led ISO to conduct a large-scale assessment of the role of standardization in the security field. One important decision was to put ISO/TC 223 into action. In 2005 the chairmanship of the committee was taken over by SIS, the Swedish Standards Institute. To better reflect its ambition to take a broader approach toward disruptive incidents that threaten the civil society, the committee was renamed Societal security. ISO/TC 223 was actively developing a series of international standards for more than eight years. In 2014, the Technical Management Board of ISO decided to merge ISO/TC 223 with other committees in the area of security for better coordination. The new committee began on 1 January 2015 and is called ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience Scope ISO/TC 223 worked under the following scope: Leadership and organisation Chair 2006-2012 Mr Krister Kumlin 2013-2014 Mrs Åsa Kyrk Gere Secretary 2006 Mr Per Forsgren 2006-2013 Dr Stefan Tangen 2013 Mrs Sanna Edlund 2014 Mr Bengt Rydstedt ISO/TC 223 established the following working groups: WG 1, WG 2, WG 3, WG 4, WG 5 and WG 6. ISO/TC 223 became one of the larger committees in ISO with around 70 member countries. Introduction to societal security The term societal security was introduced as a political science concept developed by Nicholas Cringall in 1984. The definition of societal security for ISO/TC 223 is broader than just TO DEAL what might challenge the group's identity. In recent years there have been many highly consequential natural disasters, terrorist attacks and severe crises, which have propelled the issue of crisis management to the top of the national agenda in many countries. As functions in society are shared there is a need to engage individuals, organizations, the private sector and the government in an inclusive discussion on how to better prepare, respond to and recover from crises. Now and in the future, survival of nations and citizens concerns the security of critical functions of society, rather than only the classical focus on the security of the territory. This shift entails the ability