ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1619 

                       Internationalization Policy

- Internationalization (I18N) is an important feature in Fortran. 
  Fortran 90 included features to allow multi-byte character variables,
  which continued with later revisions. Fortran 2003 provides  
  explicit support for the ISO/IEC 10646 character set, in recognition 
  of its key role.

- On the other hand, Fortran programs tend to be distributed worldwide,
  and hence, in many cases, having a single portable international
  version is more important than having various localized versions.

- Each programming language needs to choose its position between
  the conflicting demands of worldwide portability and local
  readability. 

- WG5 would like to continue to carefully control its I18N approach,
  discussing it inside the working group itself.