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| Photo credit: © AFP/MKU |
The Radio Regulations Board (RRB) is an important
body in ITU. But the information needed to
understand its role and functioning properly is
widely dispersed. This article* gives a concise overview
of the historical background, current duties
and working methods of the Board. In the run-up
to the Plenipotentiary Conference, to be held in
Guadalajara, Mexico, on 4–22 October 2010, the
information contained in this article may prove valuable
to many, particularly to administrations of ITU
Member States. Plenipotentiary conferences discuss,
among other things, matters concerning the Board
and elect its members.
Historical background
Radiocommunication was discovered in 1895,
and the first Table of Frequency Allocations was created
in 1912 by the International Radiotelegraph
Union, an organization founded in 1903 when the
infant radio technology allowed for the use of the
kilohertz range only. This first Table of Frequency
Allocations may be considered as the beginning
of the Radio Regulations, even though it was only
facultative.
Technology evolved, and in 1938 the Table was
extended up to 200 MHz. This took place after the
merger in 1932 of the International Radiotelegraph
Union with the International Telegraph Union
(created in 1865), forming what constituted the
International Telecommunication Union, which is still
thriving today.
ITU survived the Second World War in a dormant
state and, following the Atlantic City Plenipotentiary
Conference in 1947, started a new life. This was a
time when the Allied Countries wanted to impose a
new international order based on “lasting international
peace, justice, and mutual trust”. The United
Nations Organization was created to solve cooperatively
major economic, social, cultural and humanitarian
problems, and the Atlantic City Conference
incorporated ITU into the UN structure.
The importance of radiocommunications for humankind
was already clear in 1947, and the conference
was well aware of how important it was to have
international order in the usage of the radio-frequency
spectrum. This was the reason for creating the
International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB) to
manage the radio-frequency spectrum internationally
and to solve related problems in a neutral manner.
It also prompted the conference to place IFRB at
the highest level in the structure of the Union. The
Atlantic City Conference stressed that members of
IFRB must be considered as “custodians of an international public trust” and not as representatives of
their respective Member States or regions. At that
time there were eleven members of IFRB, and they
were expected to act independently and represent
only themselves. To support their independence, they
were paid from the ITU budget.
So as to maintain objectivity, IFRB members were
expected not to request or receive instructions.
Member States were asked to respect the exclusively
international character of the duties of the members
of the Board, and to refrain from attempting to influence them in the performance of their IFRB duties.
Even the Secretary-General, the highest elected
official in ITU, had no power over IFRB members.
IFRB decisions were final and could be changed
only by the majority of all Member States gathered
at a Plenipotentiary Conference or at a world radio
conference.
The Atlantic City Conference established that IFRB
members must be “thoroughly qualified by technical
training in the field of radio and possessing practical
experience in the assignment and utilization of frequencies”,
and must be elected by the Plenipotentiary
Conference from candidates proposed by Member
States. It is interesting to note that such qualifications
and experience were required exclusively with regard
to IFRB membership.
The Board was originally envisioned by its proponents
“as something of a cross between the Federal
Communications Commission and the International
Court of Justice”. In reality, the IFRB never achieved
a status comparable to that of those bodies. One of
the reasons why IFRB did not achieve that status was
because Member States did not allow it to perform
all the functions of an arbitrator for radio-frequency
spectrum usage by all the nations of the world. In
other words, Member States were unwilling to yield
any of their national sovereignty to a supranational
regulator. Interestingly, they have done so elsewhere,
in particular in the World Trade Organization.
Even with its limited powers, IFRB proved to be indispensable,
confirming the wisdom of the decisions
of the Atlantic City Conference. The Board served
the ITU membership well and impartially, helping to
ensure that the Radio Regulations were interpreted
coherently and strictly observed.
After 18 years of existence of the IFRB with eleven
members, the Montreux Plenipotentiary Conference
in 1965 reduced its size to five. The Montreux
Conference might even have abolished the Board
completely, had the developing countries not supported
IFRB, seeing the Board as a neutral body that
could assist them and protect their interests vis-à-vis
the developed countries.
Beginnings of change
Delays in the processing of frequency notifications
and flaws in maintaining the International Frequency
Master Register, as well as doubts about the efficiency
of the management of the IFRB specialized secretariat
led to criticism of the IFRB. Thus, in the 1990s,
a special Panel of Experts was created to explore the
long-term future of the Board. The Panel considered
various ways of improving the situation. As concerns
a part-time Board, the Panel’s report stated:
“ … doubts were also expressed concerning the
difficulty a part-time Board member could experience
in acting in an impartial manner. While some
members of the Panel felt that a government official
exposed to the policies of his national administration
on a more or less continuous basis would inevitably
have difficulties in acting, and being seen to
act, in a completely impartial manner in meetings of
the Board, others felt that impartiality was a human
trait, inherent in the individual and not dependent
upon the duties being undertaken.”
The Panel concluded that no significant changes
were needed in the Board’s duties in regard to
Member States but noted as drawbacks the collective
directorship of the IFRB secretariat and the unclear
division of competences and responsibilities among
the five independent Board members in regard to the
secretariat.
Some years later, the High-Level Committee on
the Review of the Structure and Functioning of ITU
proposed separating the international, high-level regulatory
activities of the Board from the administrative
internal management duties within the IFRB secretariat.
It also recommended integrating the ITU’s regulatory
activities in the field of radiocommunications
with the Union’s work on the technical and operational
aspects of radiocommunications, which were
dealt with by the International Radio Consultative
Committee (CCIR) with its own specialized secretariat
headed by an elected Director.
Based on these proposals, the fundamental decision
to replace the IFRB by a part-time RRB was
taken by the Additional Plenipotentiary Conference
in Geneva, in December 1992. The transitional period
then started, during which the five full-time members
of IFRB became five part-time interim members of
RRB, and the Director of the CCIR became the interim
Director of the newly created Radiocommunication
Bureau (BR), which was formed by merging the
former IFRB and CCIR specialized secretariats. This
transitional period lasted until 1994, when the
Kyoto Plenipotentiary Conference elected a ninemember
part-time Board, and a Director with executive
power to manage BR. The majority of Member
States believed that such a reorganization would improve
the effectiveness and efficiency of day-to-day
management, and would assist in working towards
eliminating the backlog in the frequency filing process,
while at the same time significantly decreasing
the budgetary expenses.
The Board today
The part-time Board members retain the status
originally established for IFRB members in Atlantic
City, and there have been no changes in the election
procedure or qualification requirements.
The only change was that Board members were
freed from running the specialized secretariat — this
function was taken over by the Director of BR. Board
members are no longer based at ITU headquarters in
Geneva, and work without remuneration. They reside
in their home countries and come to Geneva only for
short meetings a few times a year. Their travel, subsistence
and insurance expenses are paid by ITU.
This change created, however, a somewhat curious
situation because it means that the financial
burden of maintaining RRB members has effectively
been transferred to the Member States whose candidates
are elected.This situation gives rise to two different
cases:
If the Board member is an employee of an administration
or a company, the employer has to agree
that sufficient time and resources will be devoted
to RRB matters. Even if the Board member works
on RRB matters in his or her own time, the employer
must still agree to allow time off to attend
RRB meetings in Geneva. If the Board member is a retired expert (a situation
that has occurred from the very beginning
of the part-time Board), the administration of the
Member State concerned is supposed to provide
the conditions enabling the Board member to
work for RRB. This has not always been done, and
some Board members have been left without any
assistance, which has perhaps had a detrimental
impact on their work. Such instances prompted
the Marrakesh Plenipotentiary Conference in
2002, in its Resolution 119, to call upon Member
States to provide necessary assistance and support,
or upon ITU in the case of developing countries
where such support is not available.
Composition of the Board
The RRB currently consists of 12 members elected
from the candidates proposed by Member States
at the Plenipotentiary Conference. To achieve geographical
balance, Board members are elected from
five Administrative Regions. All ITU Member States
can vote for the candidates from each region. In
other words, voting is not restricted to the Member
States in the region concerned.
The Administrative Regions and corresponding
numbers of Board members are:
Region A (Americas): 2 members; Region B (Western Europe)1: 2 members; Region C (Eastern Europe and Northern Asia)2: 2 members; Region D (Africa): 3 members; Region E (Asia and Australasia)3: 3 members.
In the current term of office (2007–2010), RRB members are from the following countries:
Region A: Canada, United States; Region B: France, Lithuania; Region C: Kyrgyzstan, Poland (2nd term); Region D: Cameroon (2nd term), Morocco (2nd term), Nigeria (2nd term); Region E: India, Malaysia, Pakistan.
A Board member may serve for two terms only.
Duties of the Board
The duties and working methods of the RRB
are defined in various parts of the ITU Constitution,
Convention and Radio Regulations, and in Part C of
the Rules of Procedure.
The most important and complex task of IFRB,
and subsequently RRB, has been to act as a kind of
a watchdog to monitor compliance with the Radio
Regulations. The intertwined and very complicated
regulatory and technical procedures comprising the
Radio Regulations now cover almost 2200 pages.
They set out compatible ways for 41 different radio
services to work without interference, and they deal
with a huge frequency range: from 9 kHz to 275 GHz
(with research going beyond 3000 GHz).
The Radio Regulations are, of course, a living
text. As technology progresses, successive world radiocommunication
conferences — after appropriate
preparatory work — correct, change and extend the
provisions of the Radio Regulations. Despite the most
careful consideration, a conference that only lasts a
few weeks may adopt provisions and resolutions
containing wording that is insufficiently precise, leading
to divergent interpretations. Errors, too, cannot
be totally excluded because to err is human.
To strive for compliance with the Radio
Regulations worldwide is a demanding enough task
for the Radiocommunication Bureau. Add to that the
possibility of inaccuracies or inconsistencies in the
Radio Regulations, as well as the sometimes conflicting
interests of Member States, and the task becomes
extremely complex. This brings to the forefront the
role of RRB as an independent interpreter and mediator,
whose decisions may be changed only by a world
radiocommunication conference.
The Board’s ability to take decisions allows for
rapid action. Otherwise, the only option would be
to wait for the next conference. In many cases, this
would involve a long delay, leading not only to economic
losses for those involved, but also to matters
becoming obsolete before any decision is taken.
In the framework of its duties, the RRB:
considers and approves Rules of Procedure that
are needed to apply the Radio Regulations. The
need for a Rule of Procedure may be identified by
the Radiocommunication Bureau when applying
the Radio Regulations, by an administration of a
Member State or by RRB itself. These Rules standardize
and make known the practices of BR, give
clear interpretation to insufficiently clear formulations
or may correct obvious errors in the Radio
Regulations. Only a world radiocommunication
conference may confirm, change or abolish the
Board’s decisions; considers disagreements between administrations,
or between recognized operators (through
their notifying administrations), concerning
contravention or non-observance of the Radio
Regulations (but only if an administration submits
the case to the Board); considers any appeal against a decision by the
Radiocommunication Bureau or any other request
submitted by an administration; considers cases of harmful interference (but
only if requested to do so by an administration),
where the parties concerned cannot solve the
problem themselves and the intervention of the
Radiocommunication Bureau has not achieved results.
Sometimes cases before the Board are very
difficult in many aspects and may last for a long
time; considers any item requested by any member
of the Board or by the Director of the
Radiocommunication Bureau; prepares proposals for world radiocommunication
conferences to include appropriate Rules of
Procedure in the Radio Regulations; carries out other additional duties as prescribed
by the World Radiocommunication Conference or
by the Council with the consent of a majority of
the Member States.
Such an additional duty was entrusted by WRC-97
through Resolution 80 on “Due diligence in applying
the principles embodied in the Constitution”.
Resolution 80 was adopted by WRC-97 and maintained
and revised by WRC-2000 and WRC-07. It
instructs the Board to consider possible draft recommendations
and provisions that would allow the realization
of the principles of equitable right to use, and
equitable access to, frequencies and orbits. In contrast
to other duties which represent in principle recurrent
tasks, and are in general successfully solved,
this task is very special and difficult and needs the
good will and cooperation of many Member States,
and has not yet been accomplished.
In regard to carrying out its duties, it would clearly
be impossible for the Board to work effectively
without the help and expertise provided by the staff
of the Radiocommunication Bureau,whose Director
serves as the Executive Secretary of the Board. In particular,
the Bureau prepares documentation, analyses
and explains the problems raised, and provides administrative
support to the Board.
Meetings of the Board
Up to the end of 2008, the Board met four times
a year, with each meeting normally lasting five
days. From 2009, the frequency has been reduced
to three meetings a year, in line with a decision by
the Plenipotentiary Conference in 2006, in Antalya
(Turkey), driven by budgetary constraints. In 2008,
the Board discussed the difficulties that may arise
with only three meetings per year, if routine work
does not decrease and a significant workload arises
from Resolution 80. Experience will show whether
three meetings per year will allow for the smooth
functioning of the Board and, more importantly,
for the timely consideration of matters raised by
administrations.
The Board works in a transparent manner, and its
working methods are described in detail in Part C of
the Rules of Procedure. Agendas and documents to
be considered are available on the web before the
meeting. The minutes of each meeting are available
on the web in all six ITU languages. At the end of
each meeting, a summary of the decisions taken by
the Board is prepared and approved in English and
French, and made available within a week on the
web in those two languages, with the four other languages
following.
Disagreements between administrations are considered
by the Board only on the basis of documents
presented. The representatives of interested parties
do not take part in Board meetings. If more information
and explanations are needed, the Board asks for
additional documentation.
Concluding remarks
The Board — both the former IFRB and now
RRB — has played an indispensable role for ITU and
Member States. In the climate of cooperation and
compromise prevailing in ITU, the Board is able to
resolve the great majority of conflicts submitted to
it, provided that no political ingredient is involved. If
a case is driven by politics, however, the Board has
no practical means of mediating or finding a solution.
Such cases are rare but they do occur, and they
remain on the Board’s agenda for a long time. Other
forums are needed in which to consider and resolve
these cases.
The quality of the Board’s work and decisions
obviously depends on the qualifications of its members.
The type of problems that the Board has to
deal with require from its members adequate professional
knowledge, familiarity with the Radio
Regulations and ITU procedures, life experience, ethical
behaviour, and the ability to work as a multicultural
team immersed in an international environment.
This — and the possibility to devote sufficient time
to RRB matters — needs to be taken into account
by administrations when submitting candidates for
election to RRB.
* This article is based on a document presented to
the 53rd meeting of the Radio Regulations Board,
held in Geneva on 22–26 March 2010. References
for suggested further reading are contained in this
document, which is available at http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/information/promotion/e-flash/4/index.html
The author would like to thank RRB members, especially Robert Jones (former Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau), as well as Valery Timofeev, Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau and his staff, for their help and valuable comments.
1. Region B includes not only the States situated in
what is considered traditionally as Western Europe,
but also other European States that wished to
belong to Region B and joined it (after endorsement
by the Plenipotentiary Conference). At present, these
other States are: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Turkey.
2. Region C includes Central and Eastern European
States (except those that joined Region B), as
well as the following Asian States: Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
(after endorsement by the Plenipotentiary
Conference).
3. Region E includes Asian States (except those in
Region C), Australia and New Zealand.
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