The International Telegraph (later Telecommunication) Convention, today the Constitution and Convention of ITU, is the basic treaty that establishes the legal basis for the Union and defines its purpose and structure.
International Telegraph Convention, 1865-1932
The first
International Telegraph Convention signed in 1865 was an intergovernmental treaty that established the basic principles forinternational telegraphy. Annexed to, and supplementing, the Convention were the
International Service Regulations (also known as the
Telegraph Regulations) which covered matters of administrative detail.
In order to keep up with advances in telegraphy, the Member States met regularly to revise the Convention and the Regulations. At the 1875 International Telegraph Conference in St. Petersburg, the
International Telegraph Convention was simplified to include only general provisions of a policy nature. All details of a transitory and specific nature were put into the Telegraph Regulations. This new Convention was intended to be fairly permanent: Article 20 stipulated that it would remain in effect for an “indeterminate length of time” after ratification. Indeed, the Convention was not revised again until 1932.
International Radiotelegraph Convention, 1906-1932
In the meantime, the
International Radiotelegraph Convention, first signed in 1906, established international regulation for the new technique of radiotelegraph communications. Although there were overlaps in the provisions and regulations of the
International Telegraph Convention and the
International Radiotelegraph Convention – and the two Conventions referred to each other – they were maintained as separate treaties for nearly thirty years.
International Telecommunication Convention, 1932-1989
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, composition, structure and functions. Annexed to the Convention were three sets of Administrative Regulations: Telegraph, Telephone and Radio Regulations.
Revising the Convention
Due to the progress made in technology between plenipotentiary conferences, each conference introduced modifications into the Convention adopted by the preceding conference. Up to 1989, it was the Union’s practice to abrogate the previous Convention and replace it by the revised one. The new Convention then had to 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 forthe first time, supplemented with a more readily amendable Convention. The 1989
Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union never received the required number of ratifications, however, and so it never came into effect.
Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union, 1992-
An historic Additional Plenipotentiary Conference was convened in Geneva in December 1992 to adopt far-reaching structural changes to the Union as well as a thoroughly revised
Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union.
The
Constitution, inter alia, establishes the purposed 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).
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.
Entry into force : Each plenipotentiary conference fixes the date of entry into force of the Convention or modifications which it has adopted. Generally, the date is fixed about one or two years after the end of the Conference and the Convention or the modifications come into force automatically after that date. An important exception to this general principle was the 1989 Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union which was to come into force on the 30th day after deposit of the 55th instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession by a Member of the Union. This condition was never met.
