US Refuses To Sign ITU Treaty Over Internet Provisions

An anonymous reader writes "The United States said today that it will not sign an international telecommunications treaty thanks to the inclusion of Internet-related provisions. According to the BBC, the U.K. and Canada have also pledged not to sign the treaty in its current form, while delegates from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Kenya also have reservations."

Comments

Norway too

[Anonymous Coward]

Norway is also refusing to sign

Re:Norway too

[ajdlinux]

As is Australia.

Re:Treaties

[Tridus]

Not signing a treaty in the first place because you don't like whats in it is a sound and rational thing to do.

The US is doing absolutely nothing wrong in this case.

Re:Treaties

[serviscope_minor]

Treaties no longer apply to the United States.

Well, not if they don't sign. That's kind of the point. If you don't sign it doesn't apply. And they won't sign. That sounds entirely reasonable.

There are many bad things sure, but this isn't one of them. For various reasons most of the western world don't seem to want to give the ITU control over the internet, and would rather control resides with the USA for the time being.

As a non American westener, I'd agree that this is by far the best choice.

So go buy your own!

[pla]

FTA: "In particular many attendees believed it was an anachronism that the US government got to decide which body should regulate the net's address system as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core."

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, I can't imagine why the US didn't sign. "Hey, that thing you paid for, developed, and turned into a thriving platform for social and commercial activity? We don't like that you own it and we don't, so would you mind handing it over?".

Re:Treaties

[Arancaytar]

I find the US' anti-UN attitude as irritating as you do, but it's not just the US. As the summary mentions there are many other nations in opposition, and the European parliament attacked the ITU as vocally and before the US did. This move was supported and partly spearheaded by MP Amelia Andersdotter of the European Pirate Party. When she's against something concerning the internet, something just might be wrong with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#Proposed_Changes_to_the_Treaty_And_Concerns
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/24/european_parliament_votes_against_itu/

Re:Treaties

[girlintraining]

while citing exactly zero facts to support your arguments and pointing out exactly zero treaties that the U.S. has "violated".

A correctable problem, if you'd just ask nicely instead of being a total jerk and assuming that just because I didn't list them means they don't exist and I'm therefore wrong.

List of Notable Treaties the US has withdrawn from (broken)

• Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; Signed 1972, withdrawn 2001.
• Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and Draft Proposal. Signed 1972, ratified 1975, withdrawn 2001.
• Chemical Weapons Convention. Signed 1993, ratified 1997. Originally would have allowed countries to inspect other countries (including the US) for evidence of banned chemical weapons production. The treaty was modified to exempt only the United States from it.

There's also a number of treaties we haven't signed that are notable. For example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Convention on Discrimination of Women (Iran and Sudan are amongst the very few countries that also haven't signed on), Convention on the Rights of the Child (142 have signed so far), Mine Ban Treaty, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

There's also a number of treaties that, while we haven't formally withdrawn from or issued a statement on, we're in clear violation of and have stated our intent to continue doing so. Guantanamo Bay, for example, is a violation of numerous Geneva Conventions.