International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation

International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation

Sport	Mountaineering Alpine climbing Rock climbing Competition ice climbing Mountaineering Climbing
Jurisdiction	International
Abbreviation	UIAA
Founded	August 1932; 91 years ago (1932-08)
Headquarters	Bern, Switzerland
President	Peter Muir
Official website
www.theuiaa.org

The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, commonly known by its French name Union internationale des associations d'alpinisme (UIAA; French for 'International Union of Alpine Clubs'), was founded in August 1932 in Chamonix, France when 20 mountaineering associations met for an alpine congress. Count Charles Egmond d'Arcis, from Switzerland, was chosen as the first president and it was decided by the founding members that the UIAA would be an international federation which would be in charge of the "study and solution of all problems regarding mountaineering".^[1] The UIAA Safety Label was created in 1960 and was internationally approved in 1965 and currently (2015) has a global presence on five continents with 86 member associations in 62 countries representing over 3 million people.^[2]

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UIAA suspended all UIAA officials from Russia, and delegates from the Russian Mountaineering Federation (RMF) and Russian officials and athletes were excluded from all UIAA-sanctioned activities and events.^[3]