Abstract
This chapter sets out to do two things: to discuss international standards as a form of soft law and to demonstrate the usefulness of organization theory in doing so. International standards have received substantial scholarly attention during the last 20 years, but they have rarely been discussed as a kind of soft law, despite how well they fit the definition. Using insights from organization studies where scholars long have been theorizing about standards, we show how standards tend to dilute responsibility. Standards have a tendency to generate more organization and instead of clarifying or concentrating responsibility, it seems difficult to find anyone responsible in a world of standards. Discussing standards as an example of soft law, the framework for responsibility dilution presented in the chapter speaks to scholars also outside the realm of standard studies specifically.