Metre Convention

The Metre Convention, whose full title is the Convention to assure the international unification and improvement of the metric system, is an international treaty signed on 20 May 1875 and amended in 1921. Its purpose was to create an international organization, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, known by its French initials BIPM, so that states could act together on matters of measurement science and promote the worldwide standardization of measurements. The convention and its annexed regulations exist in an authoritative French text with an English translation. The initial signatories in 1875 were Germany, Argentina, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, the United States of America, France, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Russia and Sweden and Norway. The BIPM describes it as one of several forms of intergovernmental cooperation created in the second half of the nineteenth century, alongside bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union and the Universal Postal Union.