In October, the International Telecommunications Union held its Plenipotentiary Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. The ITU, an international organization operating within the UN framework tasked with addressing telecommunications issues, used the plenipotentiary conference to elect its secretariat for the next four years and develop its policy initiatives. There were few surprises in the election process, with the majority of the previous office-holders being reelected to their positions. The voting process is oddly outdated, with old world diplomacy running up against the needs of such a technically focused organization.
One office winner at the plenipotentiary conference was Mr. Malcom Johnson, re-elected to be head of the standardization group (ITU-T). This group has been responsible for issuing recommendations, which aim to standardize telecommunications and software standards across the globe, ranging from ISDN standards to JPEG compression techniques. These recommendations carry considerable weight and have often been subsequently adopted as industry standards.
In determining these standards, ITU-T is supposed to consider intellectual property rights according to a prescribed process. At the same time, however, a debate rages as to what this process should be in the ideal. While wealthier nations are mostly satisfied with the status quo over international telecommunication issues, some worry about growing technological inequalities between North/South countries. Should standardization groups consider the geopolitical dimension of intellectual property rights, and if so, with what weight?
With Mr. Johnson’s re-election, it seems as though the status quo will be preserved. The ITU’s re-elected Secretary-General, Hamadoun I. Touré, did focus on global access problems during his acceptance speech. It will be interesting to see if the ITU shifts policy in the next four years.
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