ABSTRACT
The modern ITU remains the sole international agency through which international electrical communications, whether wireless or wired, are regulated by agreement of its members, which include all the members of the UN.1 This remains its basic function. However, as was seen in the previous chapter, pressure has grown for the ITU also to act as a body through which technical developments are brought to states that are less technologically privileged. I will therefore deal first with the structural elements of the ITU – those relating to its basic function and incorporated in its constituent documents – before turning to sketch the efforts to develop communications through such activities as ITU Telecom, WSIS (the World Summit on the Information Society) and others.
