Statutes
Article 1: Object
The members signing these articles – and the ones subsequently signing – have decided to establish a non-profit association, according to the law passed on the 1st of July 1901 modified and its application texts, with the name “UNION RADIOPHONIQUE ET TELEVISUELLE INTERNATIONALE », or “International Radio and Television Union” (formerly called « UNIVERSITE RADIOPHONIQUE ET TELEVISUELLE INTERNATIONALE “), hereinafter named “URTI”.
URTI aims to promote Culture internationally under its multiple audiovisual expressions.
It implements the ways and means (programme exchanges, co-productions, creation incentive, organization of Grand Prix, distinctions, training workshops, exchanges of experiences, actions of international promotion, etc.), liable to increase the choices of audiovisual programmes its members offer their audiences.
Article 2: Missions and Means of action
URTI is an association with international character of which the action principles are based on the pooling of means by its members. It manages, administratively as well as technically, a catalogue of audiovisual programme exchanges put at the members’s disposal by the members.
- URTI notably endeavours to:
- Favour the international circulation of audiovisual works and provide their promotion.
- Make possible for its members to save important sums of money by freely acquiring quality programmes already broadcast on other territories, notably to provide contents for their new digital platforms.
- Provide its members’s coordination in order to develop a programme exchange catalogue taking into account its members’s needs.
- Make easier the production of subtitled and/or dubbed versions of this catalogue.
- Distribute to its members the audiovisual programmes offered free of rights by other international organizations.
- Make its programme resources known and make their broadcast on any platform easier.
- Coordinate its members’s action to implement co-productions.
- Promote and/or organize between its members, and without excluding the participation of outside organizations, the connections able to favour the production of programmes meeting its mission.
- Develop the participation, on the qualitative and quantitative levels, in the International Grand Prix it organizes and see to their international renown.
- Favour the search for and exchange of information in the audiovisual field.
- Propose training actions to its members.
- Keep up close relations with other international audiovisual and institutional organizations.
- Provide the archives of its programme catalogues.
URTI notably uses the French, English and Arabic languages for the documents it writes in the framework of its activities.
Article 3: Registered office
The URTI registered office is in Paris 16th (France), Maison de Radio France, 116, avenue du Président Kennedy.
Article 4: Length
The association is constituted for an unlimited period. Its dissolution could be decided in the conditions defined in article 16 of the present statutes.
Article 5: Composition of the association and membership procedure
5.1 Composition
The association is composed of the following members:
5.1.1 Founding and active Members
The founding members and the active members are accepted in the conditions provided for by article 5 of the present statutes.
They are:
- radio organizations or groups of organizations from countries member of the Union Internationale des Télécommunications (UIT) which, with the authorisation of the appropriate authorities and by the legal broadcast means, operate a service of sound and/or visual programmes;
- moral persons editors of audiovisual communication services accessible through a process of electronic communication, as through the Internet network or mobile networks (e.g. ADSL, WAP, 3G, etc.) which put at the public’s disposal contents broadcast in a linear and/or non-linear way (e.g. webradios, webTV, audio on demand, downloading, etc.).
a) Founding members
The organizations and/or moral persons mentioned in the present article 5.1.1 accepted before June 15, 2009 have the status of founding members.
b) Active members
The organizations and/or moral persons mentioned in the present article 5.1.1 accepted as from June 15, 2009 have the status of active members.
The founding members and the active members accept the present statutes and pay an annual fee of which the minimum amount is decided each year by the general Assembly. It will be possible to differentiate this amount for each aforementioned type of member.
5.1.2 Associate members
The associate members are accepted in the conditions provided for by article 5 of the present statutes.
They are moral or physical persons whose mission and goals concur, in their respective sectors, with those of URTI and who promise to contribute to creative activities in the fields where they share common interests.
These members are divided into two categories:
- the « organization » associate members: they are the institutions, the institution collectives and the international cultural and educational organizations (e.g. universities, institutes, research centres, museums, foundations, etc.).
- the « individual » associate members: they are the physical persons acknowledged for their skills in the cultural, educational, audiovisual domains and in those of the new information and communication technologies (e.g. researchers, consultants, etc.).
The associate members accept the present statutes and pay an annual fee of which the minimum amount is decided each year by the general Assembly. It will be possible to differentiate this amount, depending on whether the associate member belongs to the category “organizations” or “individuals”.
5.1.3 Ex officio members
They are not subject to the acceptance procedure provided for by article 5.2 of the present statutes.
They are accepted by the general Assembly and are exempt from the payment of fee.
They are moral persons accepting the present statutes and bringing special support to the activities of the association.
5.1.4 Honorary members
They are not subject to the acceptance procedure provided for by article 5.2 of the present statutes.
They are accepted by the general Assembly and are exempt from the payment of fee.
They are physical and/or moral persons who have an historical link and/or had a significant contribution to the history of URTI.
The general Assembly will be able to elect an honorary President, among the only honorary members, in the conditions detailed in article 9.2.b.. The honorary President does not fulfil any functional and/or direction responsibility within the association. He cannot exert the power the present statutes acknowledge to the President of the association.
5.2 Membership
To become a member of the association, it is required to present a membership request to the Director general.
The membership requests are investigated by the Director general who will be able to take into account the following criteria:
- compliance of the candidate with the qualities required by article 5 of the present statutes;
- mission of public service carried out by the candidate and/or belonging of the candidate to the public service such as specified in the candidate’s country, the association being able to grant a priority of membership to these candidates;
- pre-existence within the association of a member belonging to the same State as that of the candidate. In this case, the membership of the candidate could only be declared after advisory advice of the pre-existing member. In case of no reply of the latter within a period of 21 days from the day the advice request was sent, the pre-existing member’s advice will be deemed favourable;
- etc.
The list of criteria featuring above is neither exhaustive nor conditional.
5.2.1 Provisional membership
The Director general is authorized to declare the candidate’s provisional membership. This statute of provisional membership will only be valid until the day the general Assembly meets next and decides on the definitive membership or the rejection of the candidate’s application.
The provisional membership is subject to the payment by the new member of a provisional subscription for the current year, calculated in proportion to the number of months still to be payable until the end of the current year. This provisional subscription is determined by the Director general according to the criteria generally accepted by the general Assembly.
The provisional membership gives the new member – on a temporary basis – all the same rights and obligations inherent to the member statute of the association (e.g. access to programmes, etc.).
The general Assembly decides, during the next meeting following the provisional membership in the beginning of the session, on the candidate’s definitive membership with a simple majority of the members present or legally represented and voting. In case of a rejection of the candidate’s membership request, the latter will be repaid part of the amount of the subscription paid during his provisional membership, corresponding to the months still to be paid before the end of the year. He will then have to immediately cease benefiting from the rights recognized to the members, notably about the use of audiovisual programmes from the URTI catalogue.
5.2.2 Refusal of a provisional membership
The Director general can refuse the candidate’s provisional membership. This refusal does not have to be justifiable.
If need be, the candidate’s request will then be presented during the next meeting of the general Assembly, which will give a ruling at the beginning of the session on the candidate’s membership or not, with a simple majority of the members present or legally represented and voting.
Article 6: Resignation – Striking off
a) URTI members wishing to put an end to their membership are bound to inform the President of the association about it, in writing, at the latest three months after the end of the current calendar year and are bound to pay the fee corresponding to the current calendar year.
b) The quality of member is also lost with death for the physical persons or dissolution for the moral persons. The general Assembly is sovereign to decide of the integration in the association of a moral person who would have merged with a member moral person, or who would have been acquired by the latter.
c) For its part, the general Assembly can pronounce the striking off of a member who did not pay the membership fees twice in a row and/or who, more generally, does not answer anymore the membership criteria for URTI, who does not respect the obligations inherent to the present statutes or who commits a gross misconduct or acts tending to harm URTI, its reputation or independence.
d) Any resignation or striking off immediately puts to an end the rights conferred to the member when he became a member, and notably the right to use programmes obtained in the framework of URTI.
Article 7: Membership fees
Membership in URTI is linked to the payment of a membership fee, of which the minimum amount is determined by the general Assembly on a proposition by the executive Board, according to a scale adapted to the importance and the characteristics of each organization and/or physical or moral person.
Article 8: Resources
The resources of URTI notably include:
- The amount of membership fees paid by its members.
- The possible public or private grants or any other resources which would not be forbidden by the legal texts and the rules and regulations, notably the manual donations.
- The contributions, notably in kind, of its members and partners.
Except in the case of manual donations about which the allocations can be expressly described by the donor and accepted in that capacity only, the sums in question come into the general budget of URTI.
Article 9: General Assembly
9.1. Composition and convocation
The general Assembly is composed of the founding, active, associate, ex officio and honorary members.
It meets at least once every year after convocation by the President of the association by simple letter or fax at least fifteen days before the meeting. The convocation could also be sent by electronic mail.
The convocation gives the agenda decided by the executive Board. On the request of two-thirds of the members who have paid their membership fees, an item is placed by right on the agenda by the executive Board.
9.2 Powers
a) The general Assembly only deliberates on the issues on the agenda.
It defines the orientation of the activities of URTI, promulgates its own statutes, ratifies the provisional memberships accepted by the Director general specified in article 5 of the present statutes, pronounces the expulsions, discusses the assessments of the Commissions specified in article 12 of the present statutes, deliberates on the draft budget, the accounts of each financial year, the moral and financial report of the executive Board, gives its discharge on both these reports.
b) The general Assembly elects within itself and only among the founding, active and ex officio members:
- The members of the executive Board to who it delegates the necessary powers to guarantee the good functioning of URTI and the implementation of its decisions between two assemblies.
- The presidents and vice-presidents of the Commissions specified in article 12 of the present statutes.
- Two auditors, in charge of reports about the bookkeeping of each financial year.
The general Assembly also elects within itself, and only among the honorary members, an honorary President for a period of two renewable years.
c) The general Assembly provides for the replacement of positions left vacant during the mandate if need be.
The general Assembly meets legitimately whatever the number of members present or represented without quorum condition, except when article 16 of the present statutes apply.
9.3 Functioning
a) The general Assembly meets at least once every year.
b) A member can give another member a mandate to represent him during a meeting of the general Assembly. Each member will not have more than two proxies.
c) Ex officio and honorary members dispose of the right to vote during all the meetings of the general Assembly.
c) Ex officio and honorary members dispose of the right to vote during all the meetings of the general Assembly.
Associate members, « organisations » or « individuals » have no right to vote during the meetings of the general Assembly.
About the other members, only members who have paid their membership fees on the day the general Assembly meets have the right to vote.
In the course of his activities, he reports to the President and the executive Board.
The present statutes were adopted unanimously by the Delegates at the general Assembly of URTI, on June 15 2009, at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris.