How an Unknown Election Determined the Future of Cyberspace
One of the most underexploited and unknown tools in international relations could be one of the most important. Elections within international organisations rarely attract significant attention, but last year’s election for Secretary-General of the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) revealed the true importance of this leadership. The ITU has been called ‘the most important UN body you’ve never heard of.’ In September 2022, the United States and Russia faced off for control of the organisation. This wasn’t an election of symbolic importance or another United States/Russia showdown. It determined the future of cyberspace.
The ITU was formed in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union by a group of European states seeking to regulate communications across borders. It performed tasks such as standardising the Morse Code alphabet and the standard distress call. In 1942, it became a part of the UN. Today, its mandate is to ‘ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strive to improve access to ICTs [information and communication technology] to underserved communities worldwide.’ While it is relatively unknown, the ITU has an enormous impact on our day-to-day lives. It is responsible for the global radio frequency spectrum, assigning orbital slots to communications satellites, and setting standards for international telecommunications. In layman's terms, when we place a phone call or check the weather, we are engaging with the ITU. The ITU also handles technologies such as 5G, international calling, and facial recognition.
The September 2022 election became a type of geostrategic playground, pitting the United States against Russia and China. Global internet governance is based on a multi-stakeholder framework that limits the ITU’s individual influence. For example, technologies such as AI, Blockchain, and Quantum were not overseen by the ITU. This decentralised network was designed to limit the control of federal governments over the internet, a model opposed by Russia and China. In recent years, Russia and China have increased efforts to expand the purview of the ITU over internet governance. Russia’s efforts have been largely unsuccessful, but under the leadership of former secretary-general Houlin Zhao, China was able to increase the ITU’s influence to facial recognition and AI.
The main disagreement over the future direction of the ITU fell on discussions of Huawei’s New Internet Protocol (IP). New IP would involve making users register to use the internet and giving countries the ability to turn off users’ access to the internet. China pushed for the ITU to adopt New IP with the support of Russia and Saudi Arabia. Russia and China released a joint statement signalling that if Russia were to win the election, the ITU would adopt China’s New IP. According to a report by Oxford Information Labs, a cyber security consultancy, the Chinese approach would ‘lead to more centralised, top-down control of the internet and potentially even its users, with implications on security and human rights.’ New IP would splinter the global internet and centralise control in the hands of telecom operators. As these are primarily state-run or state-controlled in China, ‘internet infrastructure would become an arm of the Chinese state.’ New IP is not the only attempt that has been made by China and Russia to exert greater control over internet regulations. In 2011, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he wanted to push for ‘establishing international control over the internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities’ of the ITU. Under Houlin’s leadership, the ITU gave more support to Chinese companies, with Huawei alone submitting over 2,000 new standards proposals. The ITU also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Export-Import Bank of China intending to expand internet access to the Global South as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In recent years, countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Uganda have exercised greater control over the internet by shutting the internet down or blocking certain sites during times of unrest. Iran has blocked websites during the protests following the murder of Mahsa Amini. Given these actions and policies, the election for control of the ITU was not just the election of a leader, but a competition between two different systems of internet governance.
In the election, U.S. candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin faced off against Russian candidate Rashid Ismailove for secretary-general of the ITU. Bogdan-Martin has been part of the ITU for three decades and ran on a platform of universal broadband access and digital connectivity. Her opponent, Ismailov, is the former Russian deputy telecommunication minister and a former Huawei executive. He wanted to reform the rules around cyberspace and expand the ITU’s power to govern the internet, with the support of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Bogdan-Martin ended up winning the election, becoming the first woman to lead the ITU. The election ended up being easier than predicted for Bogdan-Martin. While the early part of the election was tense, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isolated it from former allies in the race. Bogdan-Martin’s victory is also thanks to the EU. The 27 member states supported her victory, but with a condition. In exchange for her victory, the EU put forward Lithuanian candidate Thomas Lamanauskas for deputy secretary general of the ITU. Now, the United States and EU hold key positions in ‘arguably the most important UN agency helping to set tech standards for the next decade.’
What are the lessons to be learned from this election? The main lesson is that the power of international institutions should not be discounted. The election for Secretary-General of the ITU went from being relatively unknown to supported by figures such as U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and President Biden. After the United States stepped back from engaging in international institutions during the Trump Administration, both Russia and China increased their participation. For example, in June 2019, Chinese Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Qu Dongyu defeated a U.S.-backed candidate to become the director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. In 2021, four out of fifteen U.N. specialised agencies, which are largely responsible for setting international norms and standards, were run by Chinese officials. Given the problems facing the world today, including the pandemic, climate change, and the rise of authoritarianism, like-minded partners must come together through international organisations. This happens, as proved through the ITU elections, by supporting candidates with shared interests for leadership positions and coordinating with allies to make sure that shared interests within these organisations are achieved. Fiona Alexander, former associate administrator for international affairs at the United States Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration summarises these elections as ‘you have to work for every vote. You have to engage for every vote. You can’t make any assumptions.’ This means that like-minded nations may need to make trade-offs. The United States, for example, may have to give up some of its own candidates for positions so that its partners can put their own candidates up for election. This type of candidate swapping gains votes in the common interest. Trade-offs on policy, candidates, and agreements should work as a transaction for votes. While countries may protest this coordinated action as giving up sovereignty, like the Trump Administration did, international institutions were formed so that countries could achieve together goals that alone they could not.
The election in the ITU proves that the importance of international organisations should not be discounted. These elections have become a tool for authoritarian states to manipulate future global governance policies. Like-minded nations need to work together to secure their interests in global governance platforms. The ITU was just one example. While it may have been shrugged off as an ‘arcane institution’ or ‘hard to get excited about,’ the election was essential in determining the future of cyberspace.
Image by the ITU via Wikimedia, ©2013, some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
