During the first international geographical
congress held in Antwerp, 1871, a local names policy, that is the
use of locally official names instead of exonyms was already decided
for international maps.
During the 7th International Geographical Congress,
held in Berlin, 1899 it was decided that an international map
series, the International Map of the World 1:1 million,would be
produced, using the local names policy. This principle was reconfirmed
during the International conference on the International Map of
the World on the millionth scale, held in Bonn, 1962.
During the 3rd UN Regional Cartographic Conference
for Asia and the Far East, held in Bangkok in 1961, it was decided
to set up an agency for the implementation of international standardization
of names, spellings and transliteration within the UN (For volume
2 of the Report of the conference, pp 312-314, see the UNSD
website, or click here).
UNCSGN:
1967 Geneva (First) United Nations Conference on the Standardization
of Geographical Names: every country should have a names authority
to draft a standardized list of geographical names on its territory;
submit it to UN, and then all other UN member states would adhere
to it.