Not quite answering your question, but worth noting that C++0x supports various unicode encodings for string literals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x#N

Not quite answering your question, but worth noting that C++0x supports various unicode encodings for string literals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x#New_string_literals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x#New_string_literals There's also a link to a proposed boost solution here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/511280/is-there-stl-and-utf8-friendly-c-wrapper-for-icu-or-other-powerful-unicode-lib http://stackoverflow.com/questions/511280/is-there-stl-and-u... Doesn't quite sound like the standard way that you're looking for, but moving closer. Edit: "ICU today is de-facto standard Unicode/localization library" from a mailing discussion of the boost solution. And http://art-blog.no-ip.info/cppcms/blog/post/43 http://art-blog.no-ip.info/cppcms/blog/post/43 has an interesting comparison of a few libraries, but not too comprehensive.