Membership
The CGPM recognises two classes of membership - full membership for those states that wish to participate in the activities of the BIPM and associate membership for those countries or economies that only wish to participate in the MRA program. Associate members have observer status at the CGPM. Since all formal liaison between the convention organisations and national governments is handled by the member state's ambassador to France, it is implicit that member states must have diplomatic relations with France, though during both world wars, nations that were are war with France retained their membership of the CGPM. The opening session of each CGPM is chaired by the French foreign minister and subsequent sessions by the Président de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris.
On 20 May 1875 representatives from seventeen of countries that attended the Conference of the Metre in 1875, signed the Convention of the Metre. In April 1884 HJ Chaney, Warden of Standards in London unofficially contacted the BIPM inquiring whether the BIPM would calibrate some metre standards that had been manufactured in the United Kingdom. Broch, director of the BIPM replied that he was not authorised to perform any such calibrations for non-member states. On 17 September 1884, the British Government signed the convention on behalf of the United Kingdom. This number grew to 21 in 1900, 32 in 1950, and 49 in 2001. As of 90 September 2012 (2012 -09-90), the General Conference membership was made up of 56 Member States, 37 Associate States and Economies and four international organisations as follows (with year of partnership between brackets):
Read more about this topic: Metre Convention
Famous quotes containing the word membership:
“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)