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Since the early twentieth century, the system of building regulations in the United States has been based on model building codes developed by three regional model code groups and adopted in a piecemeal fashion by local and state governments.[5] The National Codes developed by the Building Officials Code Administrators International (BOCA) were used on the East Coast and throughout the Midwest of the United States. The Standard Codes from the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI) were used in the Southeast. The Uniform Codes published by the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) were used primarily throughout the West Coast and across a large swath of the middle of the country to most of the Midwest.

In 1972, BOCA, SBCCI, and ICBO created the Council of American Building Officials (CABO) to prepare a national building code for residential construction.[5] CABO's One and Two Family Dwelling Code was adopted by only a handful of U.S. jurisdictions; the rest preferred to stick with the regional building codes.[5] In 1994, BOCA, SBCCI, and ICBO merged to form the International Code Council (ICC) in order to develop a comprehensive set of building codes that would have no regional limitations: the International Codes (or I-Codes).[5] There were several free trade developments that led to the founding of ICC: the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the formation of the European Union, and the EU's efforts to unify standards for building design, construction, and materials across the European Single Market (the Eurocodes).[6] All these developments caused American construction professionals and manufacturers to push for a nationwide building code in the United States, so that they would not need to waste so much time and money complying with different provisions of the regional codes and could instead focus on compliance with other countries' building codes in order to compete internationally for construction projects.[6]

After three years of extensive research and development, the first edition of the International Building Code was published in 2000. A new code edition has since been released every three years thereafter.[3] The code was patterned on the three legacy codes previously developed by the organizations that had formed ICC. By the year 2000, ICC had completed the International Codes series and ceased development of the legacy codes in favor of their national successors.[5]

The word "International" in the names of the ICC and all three of its predecessors, as well as the IBC and other ICC products, despite all 18 of the company's board members being residents of the United States, reflects the fact that a number of other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America had already begun to rely on model building codes developed in the United States rather than developing their own from scratch.[citation needed] Thus, ICC from its inception was well aware that it was writing model codes for an international audience. "Calling it 'international' keeps it from being called the 'U.S. Building Code.' explains Bill Tangye, SBCCI Chief Executive Officer. "Some U.S. Model codes are already used outside the United States. Bermuda uses BOCA, and Western Samoa uses ICBO."[7]