Washington hosted last 10-11 March the 10th meeting of the ITSO Advisory Committee (IAC), which was attended by representatives of 15 parties who are IAC members and also five other parties as observers, among them Portugal, which is not an IAC member. This was the first time that Portugal took part in a meeting of this committee.
As this was the IAC's first meeting in its current form since it was elected at the Assembly of Parties (AP), it served to choose its leadership positions. The US representative, Steven Lett, was re-appointed as chairman, and Lamoussa Oualbeogo of Burkina Faso was elected vice-chairman.
The main agenda point concerned the so-called common heritage of the ITSO (orbital positions and associated frequencies held by organisations before the reorganisation and essential for fulfilling the public service obligations), particularly differences between the director-general (DG) and the notifying administrations (USA and United Kingdom) about the need to co-ordinate with ITSO regarding the management of such resources, specifically with the ITU. This had already been one of the most controversial subjects at the Estoril (Portugal) AP, at which the DG proposed setting in motion an arbitration proceeding against the notifying administrations to resolve the interpretation differences regarding the latter's obligations in the scope of Article XII (e) (iv) of the ITSO Agreement. As a negotiation process was then under way between the ITSO and the notifying administrations, the AP resolved that the negotiations should continue for at least six more months with a view to reaching an understanding acceptable for all those involved, and only if no positive progress was made by then should the start of litigation be weighed, which would require convening an extraordinary AP.
To judge by the information provided to the IAC for this purpose, the negotiations are apparently enjoying a good spirit of collaboration. Specifically:
- With the United Kingdom there was a recent exchange of correspondence which seems to anticipate the likelihood of agreement in the short term;
- With the United States the situation is more behind due to the change of administration, which means that the ''political'' hierarchy that decides on this matter has yet to be appointed (nominations have so far only occurred for the secretary of state and undersecretary; a number of positions on the decision-making chain must still be filled, beyond the usual ITSO participants who retain their positions);
- Regarding the problems identified by the USA that have blocked agreement with ITSO, issues related to definition of the consultation envisaged in article XII of the Agreement were discussed. This is a complex matter that obliges data exchanges between satellite operators and the respective ITU notifying administrations, besides involving confidentiality aspects and free competition principles.
The IAC considered that the negotiations would thus have to continue, taking advantage of the atmosphere of co-operation between the parties involved. For this reason, along with others of a financial nature, the far majority of the parties attending expressed their disagreement about the need to hold an extraordinary AP which the DG was urging. The DG nevertheless maintained the intention to confront the USA and tried to obtain an agreement whereby the ambassadors in Washington would sign a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton requesting political intervention in this matter. The letter was rejected by all those present as it was deemed inopportune and ineffective, given that the command chain to duly handle it was not in place, as previously explained by the US delegation.
Also with respect to the common heritage and a decision from the Estoril AP, developments were reported vis-à-vis the ITU registries' changed designation for the orbital resources belonging to the common heritage - an AP decision with a view to checking with the ITU the viability of having them change from USA to USA/CH (common heritage) and from UK to UK/CH, as was practice before the reorganisation. ITSO queried the ITU about this proposal and correspondence was exchanged between the two organisations and the notifying administrations. Some IAC members felt that the AP decision in question would have consequences that should be considered before implementing same. The IAC did not make any decision to that end and decided to take the matter up again at the next meeting.
This meeting's agenda also covered other issues deriving from the AP's work, namely determination of the ITSO strategy plan, production of an updated personnel regulation and definition of criteria for evaluating the DG's performance. The IAC took note that proposals from the DG about all these issues had been submitted. However, given the absence of contributions about same from the members, the Committee asked the parties to promptly present comments and proposals with a view to debating these issues at the next meeting and for the later submission of proposals about same to the next ordinary AP (2010). The lack of discussion at this meeting may also be due to the fact that these were matters concerning the organisation’s internal management, and that decisions eventually made about them would impact on the mandate of the next DG and not the current one, whereby the respective debate should take place after the next DG takes office so that he can actively take part in the discussions.
The IAC also included a presentation by Intelsat on the financial situation of the company, which has benefited from the current crisis in financial markets by reducing its debt by 61 million dollars (nearly 45 million euros). It currently has under way a programme for ten new satellites in various stages of development (two to be launched, four under construction and four in design stage).
Lastly, the Committee decided that the next meeting will be held in the last quarter of 2009, on a date to be proposed by the DG.
The secretariat also reported that it will try to schedule the next ordinary AP session for July 2010, so as to avoid the last months of that year, which already has a very full calendar of meetings by other international organisations.
