ISO/IEC 2375:2003 specifies the procedures to be followed for preparing, maintaining, and publishing a register of escape sequences and of the coded character sets they identify.

The registration process specified in ISO/IEC 2375:2003 is not a procedure for standardization of characters or coded character sets. Organizations that wish ISO and/or IEC to create an international standard for a coded character set or that wish ISO and/or IEC to code additional characters into ISO/IEC 10646 need to follow the ISO/IEC procedures for doing so.

In particular,

• Registration of a coded character set according to the procedures specified by ISO/IEC 2375:2003 implies no commitment by ISO and/or IEC to adopt the coded character set as an ISO/IEC standard.
• The existence of a character in an approved registration does not imply a commitment by ISO and/or IEC to encode that character into ISO/IEC 10646.

ISO/IEC 2022 describes the escape sequences referenced in ISO/IEC 2375:2003, except for escape sequences reserved in ISO/IEC 2022 for private use.

The use of these escape sequences includes code extension, that is, the provision of additional sets of characters, or of additional control functions, in accordance with ISO/IEC 2022.

An escape sequence registered in accordance with ISO/IEC 2375:2003 serves as an identification of the character, the set of characters, or the control function associated with it in the register.

The registration itself does not specify the rules in accordance with which a character or character set identified by an escape sequence is to be used. Rather, the registration identifies the documents (for example, standards) which specify such rules.