Abstract
In order to solve the trade imbalancl between the USA and Japan, the USA governmeut proposed to hold the meeting of the MOSS (Market Oriented Sector Specific). Among them the forest products were pointed out as one of the main items of the MOSS conference. The USA government claimed that Japanese domestic codes, standards and regnlations were the main obstacles to prevent the free trade. Based on this understanding, both governments studied mutual building codes, but both sides faced to the big obstacles to understand them. Even if the technical standards are the same, the practical use of the building codes are diflerent. The reason of these diflerence has been caused not only by the history of each building codes but also by the social understanding for the building codes. In this paper, I discussed the difference of the practical use of the building codes among in Japan, in USA and in Canada, through various phases of actual usage of the building codes. The relation between building codes and fire insurance is the one of the big facters to made the difference of the practical use of the building codes. The fire insurance has influenced the positive effects to realize better quality buildings, in connection with the building codes in USA and in Canada.
