definition/delimitation, to direct broadcast satellites, and sensing. COPUOS meets annually for several weeks, as do its two sub-committees. Under such time constraints it has been impossible to obtain final drafts on the foregoing four subjects for submission to the General Assembly in treaty form. Because of competing national interests and the foregoing time constraints, the proposal to hold a second international conference on space activities has appealed to some States. Other States, being aware of the slowness of past negotiations, have urged the critical importance of adequate preparation prior to the convening of such a new conference. The ITU possesses an interest in spectrum/orbit issues. Unlike COPUOS, the ITU can be described as an ongoing legislative conference engaged in essentially, but certainly not exclusively, technical matters. It is a fact that by linking radio frequencies to orbital slots that ITU has interjected itself more into the political arena than at a time when it was primarily involved with the registration and allocation of radio frequencies and in efforts to prevent against harmful interference. The periodic World Administrative Radio Conferences of the ITU are normal and regular meetings. Unlike problems of the UN that may require an international conference, it is not necessary for the ITU to determine if such conferences should be scheduled. It is expected that they will be held. For the ITU there is only the problem of arranging a suitable date for such meetings. The institutional involvement of the ITU in outer space activities has been set out in its "Seventeenth Report by the International Telecommunication Union on Telecommunication and the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space." U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/213, December 22, 1977.
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