International Telecommunication Union

Butler participated in major ITU conferences as deputy leader of Australian delegations. In 1968, he was appointed by the ITU Administrative Council to be deputy secretary-general ad interim, and was elected to the post by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973.

The 1982 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Nairobi elected Butler as its secretary-general. The conference also set up an Independent International Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development, chaired by Sir Donald Maitland, which in 1985 produced a highly influential report, The Missing Link, that found that two-third's of the world's population had no access to telephone services and set a goal for bringing all of humankind within easy reach of telecommunications and its benefits by the early part of the 21st century. The Plenipotentiary Conference in Nice in 1989 followed this up by creating within ITU a Telecommunication Development Bureau. Butler's tenure also saw the signing of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) in 1988, which facilitated connectivity of, and innovation in, international telecommunication services.^[1]

He retired from the ITU in 1989 but remained involved in its activities. On his retirement, John J O'Neill, a US representative on the ITU's Administrative Council wrote, "the international telecommunications community must insist on (Butler's) continued participation as an elder statesman. His talents are too great, his understanding of the issues too profound, his negotiating and conciliatory skills too impressive to remain unused."^[2] Butler's successor as general secretary of the ITU was Pekka Tarjanne.^[3]

He was also on a number of boards, including chairman of Worldspace-Asia, a company related to Worldspace, that was set up to deliver digital radio from satellite to developing nations and remote areas, and the board of Sky Station Australia, a company that planned to provide broadband communications from a network of tethered airships.^[2]