Comment by gnfargbl
7 months ago
That's a very good question. I don't know; does any other HN'er?
The most information I can find is that the standard is maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency [1]. Additions appear to be mostly at the direction of the United Nations [2], but I couldn't find a clear procedure as to how a country code is removed. I'm also unclear on who makes the decision to mark codes as exceptionally reserved.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166#ISO_3166_Maintenance_...
Perhaps the operative question is how did IO get into the ISO 3166 in the first place? My guess would be as part of the UK defensively creating the illusion of it being a legitimate territory.
It was in the original 1974 standard [1]. No real idea on the politics of the time, but Britain had "paid" Mauritius £3 million for the islands less than ten years before [2], and of course the US base on Diego Garcia was already established.
I use the scare quotes because Mauritius was a British colony at the time, and so the offer was quite possibly one that the Mauritians couldn't refuse. That, and the fact that £50m (in today's money) seems ridiculously cheap.
[1] https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/2448/e41694ad96e34e95b...
[2] https://www.biot.gov.io/about/history/