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( Bureau international des poids et mesures)
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Bureau international des poids et mesures, in French), is an international standards organization, one of three such organizations established to maintain the International System of Units (SI) under the terms of the Convention du Mètre (Metre Convention). The organization is usually referred to by its French abbreviation, BIPM. The other organisations which maintain the SI system are the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM, Conférence générale des poids et mesures) and the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM, Comité international des poids et mesures). The BIPM is based at the Pavillon de Breteuil in Sèvres, France, where it enjoys extraterritorial status. As such, it escaped German occupation during World War II.[citation needed] The BIPM helps to ensure uniformity of SI weights and measures around the world. It does this with the authority of the Convention du Mètre, a diplomatic treaty between fifty-one nations (as of August 2008[update]), and it operates through a series of Consultative Committees, whose members are the national metrology laboratories of the Member States of the Convention, and through its own laboratory work.
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