[governance] ITU - summary of draft ITRs to date

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<855077AC3D7A7147A7570370CA01ECD21863AD at SUEX10-mbx-10.ad.syr.edu>, at 
03:40:04 on Sun, 10 Jun 2012, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> writes
>First, can you tell me (this _is_ a rhetorical question) what is the
>difference between the "safeguards" in ratifying Budapest and those in
>ratifying an ITU treaty?
>
>Because there aren't any. They are both international treaties
>formulated by intergovernmental organizations, with the exception
>that ITU is more universal in its membership than the Council of Europe,
>and thus more likely to fail to achieve consensus.

I'm afraid I don't see it like that at all.

While the Budapest Convention is a "treaty", it doesn't automatically 
bind anyone, not even members of the CoE, until they ratify it. And the 
CoE won't permit a country to ratify it until they've met various 
conditions pertaining to human rights in their country. (The CoE is 
after all, primarily a Human Rights organisation, not a policing one).

The content of the Convention is in effect a "best practice", and it was 
achieved by a process of negotiation and consensus (back in 2001).

By contrast, the ITRs will be decided ultimately by one-country-one-vote 
in Dubai, and members of the ITU (which is almost everyone, compared to 
the CoE's 47) have *already* agreed that they will be bound by the 
result. So there's no individual ratifications to come, and if the 
result is not to the US, or UK's liking, they are stuck with it.

>And as for universal end-to-end email, you made me laugh out loud. If 
>you believe that ITU, which has no serious leverage over the world's 
>software developers, DNS providers or email operators, can magically 
>make something happen that every other vendor who has tried, including 
>Microsoft, has failed to do, then you attribute tremendous, almost 
>magical powers to the ITU. Which shows how little you know about it.

The risk arises from the ITU trying to "do the impossible", and breaking 
things in the process. (Stopping bureaucrats from such activities is one 
of the main drivers for outreach from the technical community).
-- 
Roland Perry

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