What is the Universal Postal Union?

My friend Abi wrote a blog post about the S10 standard created by the Universal Postal Union. You can find it here: https://www.akpain.net/blog/s10-upu/. As a result, I googled the union and realised it was created via a international treaty: the Treaty of Bern and pre-dates the UN by 71 years. So here is a brief outline of the treaty, how the UPU became part of the UN and what the treaty looks like today.

The Treaty of Bern:

It was signed on 9th October 1874 in the Swiss city of Bern. It was originally known as the General Postal Union but its name changed to the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1878 to reflect is broad global membership. In 1874 the following countries were members: German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, the United States, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Empire, Serbia, the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, and the Ottoman Empire.

The treaty’s purpose was to allow the free flow of mail between its members. Article 1 obligates members to create a union for this purpose. Articles 2-10 outline what products are ‘post-able’ via the union, the cost of doing so and the exceptions to the ordinary prices outlined in the treaty. Article 10(1) also establishes a right of post to transit withtin the union. Article 11 states members can establish postal relations with countires outside the union without the involvement of the union. Article 14 clarifies the treaty does not affect internal post within any country that signed the treaty.

The UPU and the UN:

The UPU because part of the UN on 1 July 1948, via a negociated agreement. It is a specialised agency of the UN meaning its an autonomous international organizations working with the United Nations. The agreement is linked here (It started on page 232): https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2019/v19.pdf. Its largely procedural- establishing the information to be shared between the UN and the UPU, financing arragments and formal communication and consultation mechanisms between the UN and UPU. It is however, one of the oldest specialised agencies of the UN having celebrated its 150th bithday last year on the 9th of October.

UPU, decolonisation and Terminal dues:

The original treaty intended for the recipient country to keep all the profits from the mail because the drafters of the treaty believed all letters would get a response and as a result, the postal flows and money earned by states would balance out. This was not the case for other classes of mail even in the early years of the UPU such as periodicals.

After 1948, as membership of the UPU grew because of decolonisation, this issue became more accute. Decolonised nations recieved more mail than they sent. All changes to the treaty had to be negociated via a meeting of the UPU congress, a meeting that normally takes place every 4 years with all member states of the UPU attending. In 1969, the UPU introduced terminal dues to address this imbalance. When two countries had imbalanced mail flows, the country that sent more mail would have to pay a fee to the country that received more mail. The amount was based on the weight of mail sent and received

Terminal dues snce their introduction have often subject of disputes. Remailing, the practice of routing mail through a third country to force that country to bear delivery costs was banned in 1924. However, remailing remained an issue so in 1988 a per-item charge was included in terminal dues to drive up the cost of remailing. By this point the amount paid in terminal dues had also gone up significantly since 1964 when they were first introduced.

The most recent dispute over terminal dues was the reuslt of the 2018 trade war between the US and China. Americans complained that mailing a package from China to the United States cost less than mailing the same package within the United States. As a result President Trump announced America’s withdrawal from the UPU. Following an extraordinary meeting of the UPU congress, a unanimous compromise was passed allowing self-declared terminal dues of up to 70% of the domestic postage rate and increase the UPU terminal dues by 119–164%. The change would go into effect in 2021. Countries hat recieved more than 75,000 tonnes of mail could opt into accelerated self declared terminal dues in exchange for an $8 million annual contribution to the UPU for 5 years. This ultimately prevented the US withdrawal from the UPU.

Update to the 1964 Constitution in 2021:

In 1964, the UPU introduced a consitution and incoporated the Treaty of Bern into it. This is now the documents states ratify if they want to join the UPU. In 2021, the consitution was updated to allow agreements by the UPU congress to have unlimited validity rather than validity for 4 years.

Random fun fact to end: Did you know World Post Day is on the 9th October- chosen because it was the day the Treaty of Bern was signed. The annual award for best postal services is also announced on this day.

PS: Hope this met your expectation’s Abi :)