Pronunciation Lexicon Requirements

Hi,
I have 2 questions about Pronunciation Lexicon requirements:
1) I would like to know if there is some standard of specifying the encoding of the text in the Pronunciation Lexicon document.
Should I use the same way as encoding is specified in VXML or ABNF grammars (can I use BOM and encoding in the document ?). I have checked already the W3C document concerning Lexicon (http://www.w3.org/TR/lexicon-reqs/ ), but found nothing referring the encoding. 
2) If such standard does not exist yet, does any one know when is it scheduled for?
 
Many thanks,
Alex Rechister, 
Software Development, Natural Speech Communication Ltd, Israel.