CYIL 2013

ANNELIES VRBOVÁ – MARKÉTA NOVÁKOVÁ – MARTIN BULÁNEK CYIL 4 ȍ2013Ȏ revision intended to prevent unnecessarily high costs. Countries supporting this provision belonged mainly to the African and Arab region. However, there are no fixed routes these days, and even the operators are not informed about the exact routing. Simply, no one needs to know. 10 Thus, this proposal could be considered as rather irrelevant. Nevertheless, it was extensively discussed, and it took major efforts before it was completely rejected. Resolutions In the course of the Conference, many provisions were drafted and included into the ITRs as good will on the part of developed countries while also being useful for states that need special arrangements such as accounting systems (Article 6, and Appendix 1 and 2), or the provision of Article 8A on Energy efficiency/e-waste. The Czech Republic also gladly supported the resolution entitled “Special measures for landlocked developing countries and small island developing states for access to international optical fibre networks ”, which proves that there were not just battles, but also a great sense of good will and willingness to help. The closer the end of the Conference was, more and more stress appeared during intensive negotiations. A real breakthrough in the negotiations was on the evening of 11 December 2012, when the resolutions were on agenda. In total, five resolutions were adopted. The first one was quite easy, as already mentioned, because the aim of this Resolution PLEN/1 was clear. Many more complications occurred regarding Resolution PLEN/3. This Resolution was adopted with the following title: “To foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet” . This resolution was strongly supported by the African and Arab states. The Czech Republic, together with other European countries, Canada and the United States, were not in favour of accepting such a resolution as it was focused on internet governance, which does not fit within the ITU’s mandate. Besides, such an issue has no place in a technical treaty like the ITRs. Despite endless negotiations, a consensual solution was not emerging. In the stalemate, the Chairman decided to assess the feeling in the room by requesting delegates for an indication on who supported the text and who did not. Counting the country flags in favour and against, he concluded that a clear majority was in favour of the resolution. After that, he stated that the resolution was adopted. This procedure was very unusual, and many states felt sort of deceived, as the process actually had a voting character but calling it “a vote” was clearly rejected by the Chairman, this being no voting according to the ITU Constitution and Convention provisions.

10 Routing of traffic had been used in so called analogue networks, where this was essential. Nowadays, digital transmission using so called smart networks (or New Generation Networks) works with content consisting of small parts (packets) that seek their way through the network individually and only at the end are they gathered into a single unit again.