Paul Wilson and Geoff Huston of APNIC on IP address allocation ITU v/s ICANN

Thu Apr 28 13:17:33 UTC 2005

--On 28 April 2005 07:06 -0400 Scott W Brim <swb at employees.org> wrote:

>> I think Bill is actually correct. ITU is a treaty organization. Only
>> members of the UN (i.e. countries). ITU-T (and ITU-R, ITU-D) are sector
>> organizations that telcos can join (AIUI the difference having arisen
>> when a meaningful difference arose between telco and state monopoly).
>> However, given the entire organization is run by the ITU, it's fair
>> to say it is essentially a governmental organization run with some
>> private sector involvement. Whereas ...
>
> An ITU publication says the majority of ITU members, including member
> states and sector members, are now vendors.

Members yes, if you count sector members. But as far as I can tell,
the ITU is ultimately controlled by its council, which are state
representatives elected by a plenipotentiary committee of states.
Here's the ITU's own take, which seems to agree with me:
 http://www.itu.int/aboutitu/overview/council.html

Note the remit of the Council:

> The role of the Council is to consider, in the interval between
> plenipotentiary conferences, broad telecommunication policy issues to
> ensure that the Union’s activities, policies and strategies fully
> respond to today’s dynamic, rapidly changing telecommunication
> environment. It also prepares the ITU strategic plan.
> In addition, the Council is responsible for ensuring the smooth
> day-to-day running of the Union, coordinating work programmes, approving
> budgets and controlling finances and expenditure.
> Finally, the Council takes all steps to facilitate the implementation of
> the provisions of the ITU Constitution, the ITU Convention, the
> Administrative Regulations (International Telecommunication Regulations
> and Radio Regulations), the decisions of plenipotentiary conferences and,
> where appropriate, the decisions of other conferences and meetings of the
> Union

Just like any organization (and this is without criticism of the ITU), when
talking to a given audience, it tries to make itself appear most attractive
to that audience. Thus it emphasizes private sector involvement when
talking to the private sector. I am quite sure that when talking to African
nations, it also emphasizes that there are more Region D (African) states
on the council than their are either Region A (Americas) or region B
(Western Europe). That's politics.

I'm am trying to provide objective information here rather than opinion.
It's not as if ICANN is beyond criticism: it could equally be argued that
ICANN has *no* members (of the corporation) as such, and that the way its
board is elected is at least non-trivial to understand. However,
characterizing the ITU as a private sector dominated organization (let
alone an organization dominated by private sector players relevant to the
internet) is not accurate (at least not today - I understand they are
making overtures towards internet companies - see WGIG/WSIS side meetings).

Alex