Broadcasts transmitted from stations installed on objects affixed to or supported by the sea-bed outside territorial waters

Recommendation 422 (1965)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 28th and 29th January 1965 (23rd and 24th Sittings) (see Doc. 1887, report of the Legal Committee). Text adopted by the Assembly on 29th January 1965 (24th Sitting), as amended.

The Assembly,

1. Whereas the Committee of Ministers have, on 20th January 1965, opened for signature the European Agreement for the prevention of broadcasts transmitted from stations outside national territories ;

2. Expressing its regret that the Committee of Ministers have not seen fit to refer the Agreement to it for an opinion ;

3. Considering that the sole justification for an international regulation of telecommunications is the limited availability of frequencies and spectrum space ;

4. Whereas the aim of this Agreement is to put a stop to the proliferation of socalled "pirate" broadcasting stations ;

5. Whereas the Agreement concerns only the prevention of broadcasts transmitted from stations installed on board ships, air-craft or other floating or airborne objects outside national territories ;

6. Noting that the Agreement provides only for the optional application of its provisions to broadcasting stations installed on objects affixed to or supported by the sea-bed outside territorial waters,

7. Recommends the Committee of Ministers to instruct the Committee of Experts on Broadcasting and Television to examine the possibility of supplementing the Agreement by way of a protocol in order :

a to express the intention of the signatory Powers to use the Agreement exclusively to cope with the limited availability of frequencies and spectrum space, and not to safeguard the vested interests of any State or other monopolies in mass telecommunications ; and

b to extend the provisions of the Agreement to the establishment or operation of broadcasting stations installed on objects affixed to or supported by the sea-bed outside territorial waters or, in the alternative, to prepare a separate convention for the prevention of broadcasts from such stations.