Summary

  • China’s PP-26 proposal would invite Member States to consider national Universal Acceptance plans for IDNs, track progress and share outcomes through suitable mechanisms.
  • The draft adds a government-facing task without the annual reporting clock that Resolution 133 already gives the ITU’s own leadership.

Resolution 133 gives the ITU secretariat a calendar: the Secretary-General and Directors of the Bureaux must report to the Council every year on activities and achievements related to internationalized domain names. China’s new paragraph for the Plenipotentiary Conference gives governments a softer assignment. They are invited to consider national plans for Universal Acceptance, track progress and, “as appropriate,” share outcomes through “suitable mechanisms.” No date or common reporting channel follows those phrases.

The proposal appeared in the public PP-26 document stream on 29 October. The ITU record identifies it as CHN/87/1, a Chinese proposal to modify Resolution 133. The conference is scheduled to meet in Doha from 9 to 27 November. The text remains a proposal for delegates to consider.

Resolution 133 already invites Member States and Sector Members to exchange information on IDNs, take part in international initiatives and consider how to promote Universal Acceptance. The amendment’s change is narrower and more practical: national plans, progress tracking and coordination among relevant stakeholders inside each country. That makes government action easier to name. It does not make results easier to compare.

Each administration could decide what counts as a plan, which agency owns it, how progress is measured and whether outcomes are published. One state might count software procurement; another might publish compatibility tests; a third might report training. Those records would describe different things even if all were filed under “Universal Acceptance.” The proposed text names no shared baseline, target, schedule or reporting form to bring them together.

The asymmetry is visible in the resolution itself. ITU leadership has an annual reporting duty to the Council. National governments would receive an invitation with two layers of discretion: first to “consider” a plan, then to share results “as appropriate” through a mechanism each can select. A Council reading the annual ITU report could learn what the secretariat did without learning which governments adopted a plan or how their measures line up.

That choice has a trade-off. A flexible invitation can let administrations adapt UA work to local systems and budgets. A common minimum record would make progress more legible across countries, but it would also require delegates to agree on a measure and on who reports it. China’s draft gets the plan onto the page and leaves that harder bargain for later.

The document labels its target text “Resolution 133 (Rev. Doha, 2026),” but that heading describes the proposed revision, not an adopted result. The conference can keep the language, amend it or decline it. The accountability question is already clear: if states are asked to track progress, should the final resolution also give that progress a date and a public route?

Sources