Summary

  • Australia and the United States submitted an ITU proposal on 19 October to make “NOC” — no change — to Resolution 174, last revised in 2014. The November Plenipotentiary Conference has the decision.
  • They say the existing illicit-ICT-use mandate still works and that newer sector resolutions already carry detailed instructions. They expect related resolutions on cybersecurity, Internet policy and strategy to face edits in Doha.

An amendment can arrive without a red pen. In ITU contribution 96, Australia and the United States propose “NOC” for Resolution 174: leave the 2014 text as it stands. The conference opening on 9 November will decide whether that old book stays closed.

The book has work inside it. Resolution 174 tells the ITU Secretary-General to warn Member States about the harm from illicit ICT use, cooperate with other UN bodies within ITU’s mandate, brief the UN Secretary-General and promote international cooperation. It also calls for dialogue under the World Summit on the Information Society’s security action line, sharing of practices and progress reports to the Council and the next plenipotentiary. This is an assignment of convening and reporting power, not a new enforcement agency.

The sponsors call that text broad and flexible. They say twelve years without revision have produced no adverse consequence and point to continuing ITU work. That is their case to delegates, not a performance finding in the proposal. Their sharper point is about the pile of rulebooks around it: standards-sector Resolutions 50 and 52 were updated in 2024, development-sector Resolution 45 in 2025, and they expect the conference to consider changes to Resolutions 130, 102 and 71. Parallel editing of 174, they argue, could duplicate instructions or make the set less coherent.

The choice has a governance price tag without a new budget line. Keep 174 and the Secretary-General’s duties remain an umbrella while more specific texts change around them. Rewrite it and the conference must show exactly which job moves where. The sponsors have picked the first route. The public register records a proposal; Doha still holds the pen. The useful next document is the adopted conference text beside the final versions of those related resolutions.

Official sources