What's At Stake at ITU PP-26

By Maria Paz Canales and Mallory Knodel

Maria Paz is a member of the UK delegation in a supporting role and Mallory is a member of the US delegation to PP-26. We write here in our personal capacity according to our own assessment of the civil society engagement.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that works on international telecommunications development, and the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP or Plenipot) is its highest policymaking body, convened once every four years. ITU PP-26 will be held in Doha, Qatar in November. There, only ITU member states will negotiate the text of new resolutions and changes to existing ones. Civil society and the technical community are able to attend, but only as observer members or as individual experts on state delegations.

ITU is a multilateral space where only governments make decisions, so non-governamental stakeholders need to invest a lot of time and resources to follow the ITU’s work in its 3 sectors: Radiocommunications, Technical Standards and Development. Because taking part is hard, the Plenipot is a particularly important chance for non-governmental stakeholders to help shape the  ITU’s work for the next 4 year cycle.

Why civil society needs to engage in PP-26

The Plenipotentiary Conference is the most important event in the ITU’s calendar and takes place every four years. It is a three week long conference open to all 193 member states of the ITU. While the ITU does offer sector and associate membership to businesses in the ICT industry, international and regional organisations (including NGOs) and academic institutions, being a sector member or associate only allows you to attend Plenipot, not to speak or vote. Decisions are therefore made only by the member states, and on the basis of consensus (except for elections, which take place via a secret ballot). 

There are different committees in charge of discussing issues ranging from budget and internal ITU operation, ITU procedures to policy issues. Inside the committees smaller ad hoc groups work in the resolutions bringing the agreed text to the committees and plenary sessions at which all member states participate. The decisions adopted at Plenipot in policy issues are reflected in resolutions that set the scope of work for ITU in the following 4 year cycle. The resolutions are reviewed in advance of the Plenipot by the regional groups and finalized during the Plenipot. 

Being in the room matters. On the ground negotiations on ITU resolutions can help make sure that topics relating to internet governance, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity are appropriately defined within the ITU study mandate (the official list of topics the ITU is allowed to work on) and don't overlap with the mandates of other forums where governments, companies and civil society make decisions together. They can also brief delegations, track how text evolves across resolution drafts and flag proposals that would take the ITU beyond its remit.

For the upcoming Plenipot, there are several policy focuses for non-governamental stakeholders, but also an overarching concern that many groups have less capacity to take part in the process given tight resources. There is also an open question about how the ITU will live up to its role as one of the UN agencies implementing the WSIS outcomes, including the commitment to multistakeholder governance reflected in the WSIS+20 review outcome resolution. 

An engagement agenda for civil society at PP-26

1) Internet governance and human rights

Internet-related issues include internet governance, and the preservation of an open and interoperable internet. The ITU’s mandate is limited when it comes to internet governance, since it principally deals with the telecommunication infrastructures that make the internet possible. However, the ITU plays an important role when it comes to WSIS implementation and addressing the remaining connectivity gaps. Non-governmental stakeholders will watch for any proposals that could extend the ITU’s mandate into open internet standards, DNS administration or internet governance processes that fall outside of ITU’s work. A number of emerging technology and governance questions are increasingly being considered within ITU Study Groups and Focus Groups adding pressure to this expansion — particularly linked to AI-native networks, trust and identity, and smart sustainable cities. This raises questions about institutional scope and implies that the appropriate venue for particular issues may become increasingly contentious at PP-26.

Human rights organizations including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have been pushing for more inclusion of issues in the ITU-T. One persuasive reason is that the rest of the internet is governed in a multistakeholder way, which allows for oversight and human rights considerations in standards and policies. Furthermore the inclusion of gender in ITU resolutions was a point of contention in PP-24 between Russia and Western states. It is likely that this issue will come up again at PP-26 from Europe and other supportive states to push the ITU to explicitly address how digital divides amplify gender inequalities.

At the same time we do hope to see proactive suggestions on the ways in which the ITU could be more accessible and transparent to more stakeholders. If the ITU’s multilateral working methods were to be extended, we would see the ITU as a standards and treaty forum that aligns better with the multistakeholder methods of the wider internet governance community. Changes to working methods resolutions at the ITU-PP have the opportunity to enable more civil society participation, participation from the Global South, and especially human rights organizations.

2) Services versus networks

The implications of the economic relationship between internet content and application providers (such as streaming and social media companies) and telecommunications operators is at the heart of the debate about “cost-sharing”. Regional group discussions show that this is a live and contentious issue, including traffic-routing and cost-sharing proposals. Diverging perspectives concerning who should bear the costs of network investment and traffic delivery could have significant consequences for the internet ecosystem. The way in which the issue is addressed in the standardization process could affect internet interconnection, particularly for smaller operators and users in developing countries.

3) AI

Emerging technologies are a high priority focus at PP-26, and regional approaches differ in terms of how expansive the ITU’s AI work should go. One thing is clear: AI is a cross cutting issue across many areas in the plenary and working parties and groups such as cybersecurity, smart cities and networks. The formal debate centers on Resolution 214, the ITU's AI resolution, which is likely to be discussed at the conference itself rather than fought over in the Study Groups. The PP is a high-level opportunity that could help set a more streamlined agenda for the ITU overall, leaving behind legacy work in several areas in an effort to refocus around emerging technology opportunities.

Much of the real activity is happening through Focus Groups (short-term groups set up to develop specifications quickly), where new topics can enter the ITU's work without a wider debate about whether they belong there. Recent examples cover embodied AI, AI-native telecommunication networks, trust and digital identity for humans and AI agents, and AI for smart cities. Non-governmental stakeholders will be watching how PP-26 sets the technical agenda that could affect the scope of these groups, especially where it touches on identity, security and human rights, or duplicates work in other standards bodies and UN processes.

In addition to the unscientific term “Embodied AI,” we are likely to see an uptick in the use of “superintelligence,” (SI) in addition to AI.

4) Post-quantum

Quantum technologies are also a focus, raising specific security concerns, such as the risk that future quantum computers could break the encryption used to protect communications today. Cybersecurity and network resolutions are implicated in any introduction of post-quantum cryptography into the ITU’s mandate. What is at stake when thinking about ITU’s role related to specific technologies like these is not simply technological development, but the institutional consequences of incorporating particular technological approaches into international telecommunications frameworks, as well as how the ITU’s standardization work fits with the work of other technical bodies and UN processes. 

5) Connectivity and access to the internet

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation governance, submarine cable resilience and spectrum policy all present regulatory challenges that affect efforts to close remaining connectivity gaps. In regional discussions, these concerns are linked with network development and cost-sharing because both ultimately address the conditions under which connectivity can be expanded, maintained and made resilient. New resolutions on space-enabled connectivity might ensure more equity in the costs to deploy spatial connectivity infrastructure and better coordination on spatial data sharing to mitigate collisions in space. 

There are also concerns about internet resilience from undersea cables to infrastructure investments on land to constellations in the sky. 

The challenge is to find the policies and technical designs that support a diverse range of connectivity models without creating regulatory fragmentation or imposing costs that disproportionately affect less-resourced markets.

6) Cybersecurity 

The ITU’s work on cybersecurity capacity building is a good complement to UN cybersecurity processes and existing technical community and civil society efforts, and the ITU could benefit from working more closely with these broader stakeholders. The ITU’s cybersecurity work is anchored in Resolution 130. Negotiating this resolution has proven difficult in the past, with some advocating for the expansion of the ITU to take on a more operational or coordinating role. However, the ITU’s work to improve the cyber resilience of member countries, particularly developing countries, enjoys wide support. 

Civil society has raised alarm bells of the broader UN’s Cybercrime Treaty, because it creates overbroad mechanisms for international cooperation without adequate human rights guardrails. It is possible that interoperability mechanisms to implement the Treaty show up at the ITU-PP in cybersecurity or ITU working methods resolutions.

Emerging technologies such as quantum computing and AI are making cybersecurity threats more complex, and are likely to come up in negotiations on potential amendments to the cybersecurity resolution at Plenipot. AI affects cybersecurity in more than one way: its ability  to process and analyse vast amounts of data can either exacerbate vulnerabilities in cyberspace, or be harnessed to enhance cybersecurity, resilience, and peace and security. There are already multiple separate UN forums and processes for discussing this (including the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, and the Global Mechanism on developments in the field of ICTs in the context of international security and advancing responsible State behaviour in the use of ICTs), which would make expanding the ITU’s work into this area complex and most likely duplicative. 

7) Child Online Protection

Across many jurisdictions, evidence of harm to young people coming from online engagement has sparked pressure to introduce age-based restrictions and age assurance requirements in digital interactions. Major regulatory developments are emerging, putting pressure on technical experts and industry to standardize operations. Poorly designed or implemented measures can restrict children's and adults' freedom of expression, privacy and access to information, create new surveillance risks, or impose requirements with serious technical and privacy implications. The ITU-T Study Group 17 (SG17) Correspondence Group on Child Online Protection (CG-COP) has been working to identify gaps in child online protection (COP) standardization within SG17 and other major standardization bodies. This topic is likely to receive renewed attention at this year’s Plenipot, so it will be worth monitoring how the ITU follows up on demands for online child safety, whether through this group or another mechanism, and whether that work stays connected to standardization work in other technical bodies rather than duplicating it. 

What this means for civil society

Across all of these areas, the common thread is the scope of the ITU's mandate. The topics that non-governmental stakeholders will be looking to influence are those that present the most clear implications for internet architecture, governance, interoperability and the application of the multistakeholder model. There is also interest in how human rights will be considered in the ITU’s standardization processes happening in the new cycle of work, considering the tensions among member states that have surfaced in the most recent cycle when the topic has been brought to attention. Taken together, these topics give a broad picture of the issues likely to be among the more sensitive discussions at PP-26. For groups with limited capacity, the most useful contributions will be the ones described earlier: briefing delegations, tracking how text evolves across drafts and flagging proposals that would take the ITU beyond its remit.

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