Page 147 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

Liberalization and the Ascendancy of Trade 137

regulations facilitating a level competitive playing field for all service
providers, carriers and users was more essential. In sum, the US and
other countries recognized that because transnational telecommunica-
tions are becoming inextricably linked with the international growth
of a broad range of economic (service sector and non-service sector)
commercial activities, regulations hindering their development consti-
tuted a fundamental barrier to world-wide economic growth.
Already in 1987, an ITU Legal Symposium had examined interna-
tional telecommunication issues as trade issues in order to coordinate
these concerns with those emerging in the GATT. In part, this GATT-
ization of the ITU was a response to suggestions that the technical
regulations set by the Union should be evaluated as trade facilitators
or impediments. Again, suggestions from some US officials emerged
that if the ITU failed to promote a free trade agenda, an international
telecommunications regime based on private sector proprietary stand-
ards should be considered as an alternative to the Union itself. Given
the existence of an ITU status quo whose policies and decisions took
into account the development needs of LDCs and the protection of
state-controlled PIT monopolies, 21 some telecommunication and
information-based service sector corporations began to consider that
even 'an effective state of anarchy' would offer better opportunities
for economic growth than would existing ITU regulatory priorities. 22
With this US-led challenge in place, W ATTC-88 produced a com-
promise agreement in which privately owned telecommunication net-
works were, to some extent, exempted from future ITU regulations.
Moreover, those regulations that were established at the Conference-
mostly affecting state-controlled telecommunications entities - were
not legally binding. Most remarkably, WATTC-88 formally recogn-
ized that future telecommunication services regimes should be nego-
tiated as 'trade' regimes. Despite these concessions, American interests
criticized the conference for not formally condemning PITs as unac-
ceptable institutional barriers to the development of the international
service economy. 23

6.2 THE EMERGENCE OF FREE TRADE

The emerging awareness of service sector activities as significant
components of the world economy has been associated with the shift-
ing competitive capabilities of relatively advanced capitalist econo-
mies.24 In 1972, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and