About ITU plenipotentiary conferences and the ITU Constitution and Convention
What is a plenipotentiary conference?
The Plenipotentiary Conference is the top policy-making body and supreme organ of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Throughout the history of ITU, the Plenipotentiary Conference has been the only body with the power to amend the International Telegraph (later Telecommunication) Convention, today the Constitution and Convention of ITU. These Basic Instruments give ITU its legal personality, establish its structure and define its functions.
The Plenipotentiary Conference sets the general policies and directions of the Union, establishes the basis for the organization’s financial plan and revises when necessary the Constitution, the Convention, the General Rules of Conferences, Assemblies and Meetings of the Union as well as the Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes. It is composed of delegations representing Member States. Each Member State of the Union is invited to participate. Only accredited delegations are entitled to exercise the right to vote of the Member State concerned and to sign the final acts of the Conference. Member States in arrears in their payments to the Union do not have the right to vote for as long as the amount of their arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contribution due for two years. Furthermore, Members States which are not party to the Constitution and Convention do not have the right to vote either. The United Nations and its specialized agencies as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, regional telecommunication organizations, and intergovernmental organizations operating satellite systems may attend the Conference as observers. Certain categories of ITU Sector Members may also attend the Conference as observers in an advisory capacity or not.
The Plenipotentiary Conference, which is convened every four years since 1994, elects the senior management team, i.e., the “elected officials” (the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General and the Directors of the Bureaux) as well as the Member States of the Council and the members of the Radio Regulations Board (previously the International Frequency Registration Board).
The origins of the Plenipotentiary Conference and the Telegraph Convention and Regulations
The International Telegraph Union, the predecessor of today’s ITU, was created in 1865 when representatives of twenty European States met in Paris to coordinate and set standards for the telegraph systems in Europe. The 1865 International Telegraph Conference drew up the International Telegraph Convention – an intergovernmental treaty that established the basic principles for international telegraphy. Annexed to, and supplementing, the Convention were the Regulations for International Service (also known as the Telegraph Regulations). The Regulations covered matters of administrative detail, such as the interworking of equipment, operating procedures and settlement of accounts. The 1865 Conference also stipulated that in order to keep up with technical and administrative progress, the Convention should be periodically revised by international conferences held in the capitals of the contracting parties.
The 1865 Conference thereby established the basic elements of the Union's structure: a formal convention, regulations, and a structural mechanism whereby these instruments could be modified and updated in the future by periodic conferences.
Plenipotentiary conferences and administrative conferences
This structure was refined and formalized ten years later at the 1875 International Telegraph Conference in St. Petersburg. At this Conference, the International Telegraph Convention was revised and simplified to include only general provisions of a policy nature that would remain in effect for an “indeterminate length of time” (Article 20). All the details of a transitory and specific nature were put into the Telegraph Regulations, and it was decided that the Regulations could henceforth be revised by Administrative Conferences (Articles 15-16). Administrative Conferences would be attended by technical experts from the Member States who would not have the right to revise any of the provisions of the International Telegraph Convention itself. The Convention could only be revised by a plenipotentiary conference. After the St. Petersburg Conference, the Union held a series of Administrative Conferences to revise the Telegraph Regulations, but the next Plenipotentiary Conference to revise the International Telegraph Convention was not held until 1932.
The International Telecommunication Convention
In 1932, in Madrid, the International Telegraph Conference and the International Radiotelegraph Conference met together and decided to merge into a single entity, the International Telecommunication Union, with a single convention embracing the three fields of telegraphy, telephony and radio. The new International Telecommunication Convention served as the Union’s charter, establishing its legal existence and setting forth its purposes, compositions, structure and functions. Annexed to the Convention were three sets of Administrative Regulations: Telegraph, Telephone and Radio Regulations.
Following the tradition established by the 1875 International Telegraph Convention, Article 18 of the new Telecommunication Convention stipulated that the Convention could only be revised by a plenipotentiary conference, while the Regulations were subject to revision by Administrative Conferences.
Following the 1932 Conference, Plenipotentiary Conferences met regularly to review and revise the Convention while Administrative Conferences continued to be convened when needed to consider specific telecommunications matters and to revise the pertinent Administrative Regulations.
The Constitution and Convention of ITU
Between 1865 and 1989, it was the Union’s practice to adopt at each Plenipotentiary Conference a new Convention (abrogating the previous one) to be ratified by each Member State. This tradition of continuously renegotiating the Union’s Basic Instrument was substantially altered by the decisions of the 1989 Nice Plenipotentiary Conference. The Nice Conference agreed to separate the more permanent provisions of the existing Convention into a Constitution, which was established for the first time, supplemented with a more readily amendable Convention.
The Constitution, inter alia, establishes the purposes and structure of the Union, contains the general provisions relating to telecommunications and special provisions for radio, and deals with relations with the UN and other organizations. The Convention, inter alia, establishes the functioning of the Union and, in particular, of its three Sectors (Radiocommunication (ITU-R), Telecommunication Standardization (ITU-T), and Telecommunication Development (ITU-D)). Both instruments have treaty value and are further complemented by the Administrative Regulations (the International Telecommunication Regulations and the Radio Regulations). In 1998, the General Rules of Conferences, Assemblies and Meetings of the Union, which include election procedures, were removed from the Convention and now form a separate legal text binding on all Member States that can only be amended by the Plenipotentiary Conference.
The basic texts of ITU today
The Additional Plenipotentiary Conference held in December 1992 in Geneva adopted significant structural reforms and a new Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union were signed. Subsequent plenipotentiary conferences have adopted only amending instruments to the 1992 documents. The Constitution and Convention currently in force are the Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (Geneva, 1992) as amended by subsequent plenipotentiary conferences. Today, the basic texts of ITU also include the General Rules of Conferences, Assemblies and Meetings of the Union and the Optional Protocol on the settlement of disputes as well as the Decisions, Resolutions and Recommendations in force, as adopted by the Plenipotentiary Conference. The current consolidated basic texts of ITU can be consulted on the ITU website at Basic Texts of ITU or can be purchased from the ITU Bookshop.
To begin exploring the history of ITU's plenipotentiary conferences, click here or refer to the list of conferences available using the lefthand navigation menu.