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

EXPANDING GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES 83traditional approach than to introduce a system likein the UN or many of its Specialized Agencies, bywhich the Organization becomes dependent, for25% of its budget, on one single Member State,whose financial contribution within the ITU doesnot even reach 8% of the budget. If such a Statedecides not to pay anymore the equivalent of such25% or to leave the Organization, the difficultiesand crisis would be much greater, as some sisterorganizationshad to experience, than continuing tolive with such disparity or imbalance as in the ITU,which had never to suffer under a similar situation!8. The ITU has only five elected “Officials” (see page73), to which “CS art. 27.2” = CS No. 154 applies,as it is also stipulated in CS Nr. 62 as amended atKyoto, the 12 members of the RRB are consideredas ’’experts on mission” in the meaning of the 1946UN Convention on the Privileges and Immunities ofthe UN and can in no way be considered as ITU“Officials”, and for them apply the specialrequirements referred to in paragraph 6 above.That all those 17 persons elected by the ITUPlenipotentiary Conference, the Union’s supremeorgan, “shall be nationals of different MemberStates” (ibid) considers Lyall as “too many”. Thisfigure of not quite 10% of the total of the 188 ITUMember States is, in my view, justified because itensures best possible “equitable geographicaldistribution amongst the regions of the world”(ibid), while Lyall’s “compromise” of “not morethan two persons of one nationality” would risk tojeopardize that latter requirement, as it could easilybring down the 17 elected persons to only ninenationalities. This would amount to just 5% of thetotal membership and really not be “equitable”!9. “The ITU Council” (see page 74) had alreadysince Kyoto 1994 a membership of 46 States, i.e. anumber which did not exceed the “25% ceiling”,which had been fixed by that PlenipotentiaryConference (PC) and which the 1998 MinneapolisPC did not change. I am afraid that Frank Lyall’ssuggestion for reduction of that number, theintroduction of a different concept, i.e. Councillorsnot representing anymore “individual ITUmembers”, but “on occasion (often indeed)”representing “the interests of groups of states”, anda change of “voting weight in Council”, byfollowing “the model of the INTELSAT Board ofGovernors”, will indeed remain “without muchhope”, as he himself assumes. I have lived throughand advised the ITU Council during 19 years inconstantly increasing composition, i.e. from 36 to41 to 43 and finally to 46 (its present size) and canassure everyone that the increasing size did notmake it a “cumbersome body”, although I basicallyam always in favor, like Frank Lyall, for smallersize bodies. However, one must keep in mind andadmit that for an organization of such a largemembership of 188 Member States, like the ITU,25% thereof forming its indeed “governingCouncil” for a period of over four years - with thePC as the supreme organ not meeting annually, butonly very fourth year, this size for the ITU Councilis really quite reasonable, representative andworkable. The latter is even more true for thepresent “concept” of its composition, which should,at any rate, be fully maintained. It would -worldwide - be more than difficult and indeed“cumbersome” to figure out any representation inthe ITU Council according to “the interests ofgroups of states”, as Lyall suggests. The interestsdiverge, and there are only a few regionalformations or organizations, like the EuropeanUnion (EU), in which almost all of the ITURegion B countries with converging interests andfilling eight (8) seats at the present ITU Council outof a total of 46 seats. It would take any PC a longand 'hard time, eventually wasted, to form suchgroups of interests for the sole purpose of electinga Council according to Lyall’s “different concept”.Such course of action might even risk to bring moreunrest and antagonism into the Union than it wouldproduce any beneficial outcome; it is too academicand should not be further pursued. Also, any“weighted voting rights” should simply beforgotten, because their introduction now, at thisstage of the overall political evolution, would be,in my mind, utopian and without any chance (invoting!) of success, because it would be consideredas retrogressive or simply “reactionary” by themajority of the Member States!10. Coming now, finally, to the “radio matter” (seeparagraph 5 above) and thus first to the “Paper