The exploration and use of outer space including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind. Operating on the premise that the frequency/orbit resource is both international, natural, and limited the ITU has endeavored to effect an orderly disposition of the linked resource. This has taken the form of seeking to avoid harmful interferences. This has involved a vast amount of coordination by the IFRB as it has engaged in its function of receiving national assignments of frequencies, in according registration and notice, and in making service allocations. The ITU has focused on the duty of its member States to use the allocations that have been made. Failure to use can result in possible loss of registration. This has rendered somewhat less meaningful than prior to 1973 the claim that priorities could be established through the "first come - first served" concept. In this situation the earlier rather abstract discussions are giving way to practical considerations in which the technical needs of States and the special competence of the IFRB play a role. Whenever there is competition for a given resource, and advantages are to be derived from its use, there emerges a need for some kind of administrative process and entity. For the time being the ITU has accepted the role of such a central and community-oriented intergovernmental institution. The ITU is not the only world organization that is involved in the management of the space resource. In comparison with the UN, the ITU has been identified as a primarily technical body with the UN being a primarily political body. Nonetheless, there have been points of David M. Leive, The Future of the International Telecommunication Union, op. cit., p. 42.
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