The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
Thursday, 7. December 2006, 20:08:14
the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Founded in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, the ITU was originally created as a way to develop consensus between European countries about what technical standard to use for the telegraph, since at the time international telegraphy was slowed down greatly by the need for manual re-transmission at each national border. Later, the ITU became the arena for negotiation of international technical standards on radio, followed by television, then satellite orbit allocation. Currently, the ITU is the host organization for the World Summit on the Information Society (you can find out more about this UN Summit on our WSIS pages). The ITU is located in Geneva, Switzerland. Activist Perspective Historically, decisions made by the ITU have been dominated by the interests of the most powerful countries and telecom companies. In the past few years, the ITU has become even more open to direct participation by the private sector. At the same time, activists have created increasing pressure on the ITU to become more democratic, open, transparent, and accountable. This pressure has already yielded some results: in 1998, the ITU formed a Group on Gender Issues; more recently, the ITU has engaged in dialogue with NGOs about the possibility of greater civil society participation. However, NGO input is marginalized and the costs are prohibitive. Right now, activists are building momentum behind demands to reform the ITU, including: Increased civil society participation, including a membership category for NGOs with rights equal to the private sector and 'sliding scale' membership fees; Increased transparency in ITU decisionmaking, including at least 'observer' rights for civil society representatives during all meetings, and online publication of all meeting notes; Inclusion of social justice indicators in all data gathered by the ITU, for example 'phone access' cannot be measured simply by phones per capita but must include data on access stratified by income, gender, ethnicity or caste, age, disability, geographic location, etc.; Creation of a global network of 'civil society satellites,' to be used for noncommercial, nonmilitary purposes. This network could be funded by charging private corporations fees for their use of orbital space, which is a global public good, or by setting aside bandwidth on commercial satellites for 'global public access.' http://www.freepress.net/global/institution.php?o=ITU |
