Proceedings of the Workshop - United Nations Office for Outer ...

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188 POSSIBLE INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS, INCLUDING LEGALCONFLICT RESOLUTION IN EXPANDING SPACE COMMERCIALIZATIONwithout any end-to-end change in the form or content ofthe customer's information. Public telecommunicationstransport network is defined as the publictelecommunications infrastructure which permitstelecommunications between and among definedterm ination points. F inally, inter-corporatecommunications is explained as telecommunicationsthrough which a company communicates within thecompany or with or among its subsidiaries, branchesand, subject to a Member's domestic laws andregulations, affiliates. The legal determination of theconcepts of subsidiaries, branches and affiliates is leftto domestic law. The definition excludes commercial ornon-commercial services that are supplied to companiesthat are not related subsidiaries, branches or affiliates,or that are offered to customers or potential customers.The transparency requirement obliges Members tomake relevant information on conditions affectingaccess to and use of public telecommunication transportnetworks and services publicly available. This includestariffs and other terms and conditions of service,specifications o f technical interfaces, information onbodies responsible for relevant standardization,conditions applying to the attachment of terminal orother equipment, and notifications, registration orlicensing requirements (Section 4).Access and use o f public telecommunicationstransport networks and services for foreign serviceproviders must be accorded in a reasonable and nondiscriminatorymanner for the supply of a service in asignatories schedule (Section 5). Such access and usemust be granted for any public telecommunicationstransport network or service offered within or acrossthe border of that Member, including private leasedcircuits. A number o f further obligations are set forth,including permitting customers to purchase or leaseattachment equipment o f their choice, to interconnectprivate leased or owned circuits with public networks,and to use operating protocols of the services suppliersor customer's service suppliers, and for access toinformation contained in databases or otherwise storedin machine-readable form in the territory o f anyMember. On the other hand, a Member is entitled totake measures to ensure the security and confidentialityo f messages or to safeguard the public servicesresponsibilities, to protect the technical integrity o f thenetworks and services or to ensure that no services areprovided outside the scope of a Member's schedule.The Telecommunications Annex recognizes thespecial needs o f developing countries and encouragestechnical cooperation to establish an efficient, advancedtelecommunications infrastructure to expand their tradein services (Section 6). It finally also stresses theimportance o f global technical standards forc o m p a tib ility and in te r-o p e ra b ility o ftelecommunications networks and services, requiringcooperation with relevant international bodies, such asthe International Telecommunications Union and theInternational Organization for Standardization (Section7).Specific Commitments of StatesThe legal regime governing the liberalizingcommitments o f Members is mostly based uponArticles XVI and XVII o f the GATS. The actual degreeo f liberalization under the GATS is depending on theservices included in a country's schedule. In otherwords, the Agreement only applies to those serviceswhich each individual state has agreed to accept in itscommitment to liberalize. Most countries found itrelatively easy to make such commitments concerninga range o f value-added telecom services (i.e. on-linedata processing, on-line data base storage and retrieval,electronic data interchange, e-mail and voice mail), andas a result o f the Uruguay Round they were alreadycovered by 44 Schedules, representing 55 WTOmember states. The problem of the liberalization of”basic” telecommunications services was dealt with onthe basis o f the Ministerial Declaration on BasicTelecommunications and the Annex on Negotiations onBasic Telecommunications which allows countries tomake MFN exemptions at a later stage than foreseen inthe GATS.The agreement on the problem o f how to define”basic telecommunications” on the national level wasset aside in the negotiations which included all publicand private telecommunications services concerningend-to-end transmission of customer supplied
POSSIBLE INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS, INCLUDING LEGALCONFLICT RESOLUTION IN EXPANDING SPACE COMMERCIALIZATION189information, for example, the simple relay o f voice ordata from sender to receiver. The commitments made in1997 cover not only basic telecommunications servicesprovided over a network, but also services providedthrough resale over private leased circuits. Marketaccess includes the trans-border supply oftelecommunications as well as services offered by theestablishment o f foreign companies, or commercialpresence, including the opportunity to own and operateind ep en d en t telecom m unications netw orkinfrastructures. Thus, the agreement, inter alia, coversvoice telephony, data transmission, telex, telegraph,facsimile, private leased circuit services, such as thesale or lease of transmission capacity, fixed and mobilesatellite systems and services, cellulartelephony, mobiledata services, paging, and personal communicationssystems.At the heart of the agreement is the consequencethat the liberalization must be extended to all WTOmember states on a non-discriminatory basis accordingto the MFN principle. However, in accordance with theaforementioned legal framework, at the end o f thenegotiations, 9 WTO member states filed lists ofexceptions services to the most-favoured-nationprinciple concerning measures affecting trade in basictelecommunications.With regard to satellite services, by February 1997SO states had made full offers guaranteeing access forall domestic and international satellite services. Inaddition 6 countries guaranteed market access forselected satellite services and facilities (Brazil,Columbia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Hong Kong and SouthAfrica). O f the 69 parties to the agreement, only 13developing countries made no market accesscommitments for satellite services.11EvaluationIn economic terms the agreement is a landmark in theliberalization of international trade. In 1995 the revenue11 See G.C. Hufbauer/E. Wada (eds) , Unfinished Business:Telecommunications after the Uruguay Round (1997), p. 21 etseq.from global telecom services was about US$601.9billion (2.1 per cent o f global GDP), with agrowth rateof7 per cent. While the 130 member states ofthe WTOcover about 95 per cent (US$570 billion) of the globaltelecom revenue in 1995, the about 70 WTO memberstates that have entered into commitments account for91 per cent of global telecom revenues and 82 per centof the world’s telephone main lines. About 77 per cento f the global market in 1995 was shared by theEuropean Union, the United States, Japan, Canada andAustralia. Prior to the 1997 agreement, only about 20per cent of the global telecom services market had beenopen to competition.Moreover, on 26 March 1997, 40 WTO memberstates, representing 92.5 per cent o f world trade in thissector, agreed to implement the WTO MinisterialDeclaration on Trade in Information TechnologyProducts (ITA).12 Beginning on 1 July 1997, customsduties on computer and telecommunications productswere agreed to be reduced and eliminated altogether bythe year 2000, applying to all WTO member states. TheITA includes computers, semiconductors, telecomshardware and computer software which are the conduitfor the delivery of information, and its purpose is tomake such products more affordable, also in the poorercountries to improve living standards, health andeducation. The ITA covers almost US$ 600 billion inworld trade. The ITA accord and the telecomsagreement reached one month earlier together coverinternational business worth more than US$ one trillion.This is about the equivalent o f world trade inagriculture ($444 billion in 1995), automobiles ($456billion) and textiles ($153 billion) collectively. In viewof the fact that trade in information technology isgrowing faster than world exports in the past ten years,these two sectors taken together are the backbone of theglobal economy and, in quantative terms, theirliberalization amounts to a new trade round.Developing countries, of course, have much lowershares o f global telecommunications activities thanindustrialized countries. However, in 1995 certaincountries, such as Korea, Brazil, Mexico andArgentina, ranked among the top ten in shares of global12 See WTO Focus, Newsletter March 1997 No. 17, p. 1 et seq.
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ST/SPACE/2Office for Outer Space Af
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IntroductionThe Workshop on Space L
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CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS OF THEWOR
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SESSION ONEExisting United Nations
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EXISTING UNITED NATIONS TREATIES: S
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SESSION FOURExpanding Global Remote
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Page 229 and 230: 223Annex IITHIRD UNITED NATIONS CON
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