A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, and related management systems practices.
A technical standard includes definition of terms; classification of components; delineation of procedures; specification of dimensions, materials, performance, designs, or operations; measurement of quality and quantity in describing materials, processes, products, systems, services, or practices; test methods and sampling procedures; or descriptions of fit and measurements of size or strength.
[1] It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes, and practices.
A technical standard may be developed privately or unilaterally, for example by a corporation, regulatory body, military, etc.
Technical barriers arise when different groups come together, each with a large user base, doing some well established thing that between them is mutually incompatible.
To further support this, the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee published the "Six Principles" guiding members in the development of international standards.
[8] The International Trade Centre published a literature review series with technical papers on the impacts of private standards[9][10][11][12] and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a number of papers in relation to the proliferation of private food safety standards in the agri-food industry, mostly driven by standard harmonization under the multistakeholder governance of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
Also, "the multiplicity of standards and assurance schemes has created a fragmented and inefficient supply chain structure imposing unnecessary costs on businesses that have no choice but to pass on to consumers".