Daniel's been reading the General Assembly calendar again. His question this week is about the institution itself, the UNGA, the big annual session that opens next week. He points out the obvious tension, that this is a body that meets all year, committees and plenaries and working groups, and yet once a year it turns into this frenzied spectacle where every head of state flies into New York, traffic shuts down, and the whole world watches speeches. His question is simple: if the UN is already a permanent, functional forum for multilateral dialogue, why does it need an assembly at all? Doesn't the annual frenzy contradict the idea that the body is permanent? And how significant is this one week in terms of what actually gets decided, compared to the institution's normal operating pace?
The short answer is that the frenzy is the point. The permanent machinery exists to service the frenzy.
That's a sentence that sounds like a contradiction until you look at the calendar.
Look at the calendar and it resolves. The General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the UN, established in 1945 under the Charter. All 193 member states, one country one vote. It is, on paper, the main deliberative and representative organ. It is always in session, technically. The annual session runs from September to September. But most of that year, the work is happening in six main committees, disarmament, economic issues, human rights, legal matters, and so on. Those committees are doing real technical work, but nobody is watching them.
And nobody is flying in for them.
The committee meetings are attended by mid-level diplomats. The permanent representatives, the ambassadors, they show up for the big votes. But the heads of state, the presidents and prime ministers, they come once a year, for the General Debate, which is typically the third week of September. That's the week that starts next week.
So the body is permanent, but the attention is seasonal.
The body is permanent the way a theater is permanent. The building is always there, the staff is always there, the rehearsals happen all year. But the performance is one week, and the performance is what funds the rest of it, what gives it political weight.
That's a useful frame. The theater analogy, I mean. Because the General Debate itself produces no binding decisions. It's speeches. Each head of state or government gets a slot, about fifteen minutes on paper, though some run longer. They speak, they leave, the next one speaks. Nothing is voted on during the Debate. It is, in the strictest sense, a talking shop.
And yet the talking shop matters. This is the paradox Daniel is pointing at. If the UNGA is already a permanent forum, why does the annual assembly exist? The answer is that the annual assembly is a coordination device. It is a forcing mechanism. Without a fixed date on the calendar when everyone is expected to show up, most of these leaders would never come to New York at all. The permanent forum would be a forum of deputies and chargés d'affaires. The annual event creates a deadline, and the deadline creates presence.
It also creates a media moment. The General Debate is the one time of year when the UN is on every front page, every broadcast. That attention is a resource. It can be used to pressure governments, to launch initiatives, to shame violators. The fact that the speeches are non-binding doesn't mean they have no effect. They shape narratives.
That's the knock-on effect. What gets said on the floor becomes headlines. Headlines shape public opinion. Public opinion shapes government policy. So a non-binding speech can, over time, produce binding consequences. It's a slow-moving mechanism, but it's real.
Let's go back to the history, because Daniel asked about the history specifically, and it explains a lot about why the structure looks the way it does.
The UNGA was created in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations Assembly. The League had failed to prevent World War II, and the founders of the UN were trying to fix that failure. The League's assembly had been, in their view, too weak, too slow, too easy to ignore. But the UN Charter created a split: the Security Council, with its five permanent veto-wielding members, would handle questions of peace and security, and the General Assembly would be the forum where every nation, large or small, got a voice.
The one country one vote principle was a deliberate corrective. The League had been dominated by the great powers. The UNGA was supposed to be the place where a small state could stand up and be heard.
The first session met in London in January 1946, with 51 member states. It later moved to New York. The General Debate format, where each country gets a turn to speak, was established early. It was a way to let every nation air its grievances and priorities, a kind of global airing of the lungs.
Airing of the lungs. That's a phrase.
I'm not sure where I picked that up. But it fits. The annual rhythm developed quickly. The session opens in September, the General Debate happens in that third week, and then the work breaks into the six committees, which grind through the year. The plenary reconvenes periodically to adopt resolutions. Most of those resolutions are recommendations. They don't bind member states.
This is the key distinction most coverage gets wrong. UNGA resolutions are not Security Council resolutions. The Security Council can impose sanctions, authorize military action, issue binding orders. The General Assembly cannot. It can recommend, it can condemn, it can urge. But it cannot compel.
And that's by design. The founders wanted the Security Council to have teeth and the General Assembly to have voice. The problem is that the Security Council's teeth often get pulled by the veto. The General Assembly, by contrast, has no veto. Every member gets one vote, and no one can block a resolution. So the UNGA can speak on issues where the Security Council is paralyzed.
That's the Uniting for Peace resolution of 1950. When the Security Council deadlocked over Korea, because the Soviet Union was boycotting and then returned with a veto, the General Assembly adopted a mechanism to take up peace and security matters itself. It can't enforce, but it can recommend collective action. It was a workaround for the veto.
And it's been used, what, a dozen or so times since? It's a pressure valve. When the Council is stuck, the Assembly can at least convene an emergency special session and put the world's attention on the problem.
So the history answers Daniel's question in part. The annual assembly exists because the permanent body, left to its own rhythms, would never generate the political will to bring heads of state together. The annual event is a ritual, and the ritual is what gives the permanent body its significance.
The ritual also creates the conditions for the real work, which is not the speeches. The real work is on the sidelines.
That's where the Greenland meeting comes in. Daniel mentioned it. The U.S. and Denmark are planning to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly to negotiate security arrangements over Greenland. That is a perfect example of the annual assembly's function. Where do you hold a sensitive bilateral negotiation? You hold it in New York during UNGA week, because both sides are already there, it's neutral ground, and it's convenient. You don't have to schedule a special summit. You don't have to choose a host country. You just book a room.
And the U.S.-Iran war deadlock is the other example Daniel raised. Both countries will speak during the General Debate. Iran's president will use the platform to criticize the United States. The U.S. will use it to rally allies. There may be no direct negotiation, but the speeches themselves are signals. They tell the rest of the world where each side stands, what they're willing to consider, what they're not.
Signaling is the right word. A speech at the UNGA is not a private diplomatic cable. It's a public statement of position, delivered in front of the entire world. That has a different weight. It's harder to walk back. It commits you, at least rhetorically.
And it creates a record. Other countries, journalists, analysts, they all parse the speeches for shifts in tone, for changes in language, for omissions. Did the Iranian president mention the nuclear program? Did the American president mention preconditions? Those details become the basis for the next round of diplomacy.
So the annual assembly is a stage for signaling, and the sidelines are where the actual negotiations happen. That's the dual nature Daniel is asking about. The permanent forum is the machinery, the annual frenzy is the moment when the machinery becomes politically salient.
Let me push on one thing, because I want to make sure we're not overselling the UNGA. Its resolutions are often ignored. The General Assembly can pass a resolution condemning a human rights violation, and the violating state can simply shrug. It can adopt a resolution on climate change, and the major emitters can continue as before. The UNGA has no enforcement power, and everyone knows it.
That's the limit. The UNGA is a forum, not a decision-maker with teeth. The Security Council is where the binding power lies, and even there, the veto often blocks action. So the UNGA is significant as a forum, as a stage, as a coordination device, but not as a body that can compel compliance.
And yet, the non-binding nature of the resolutions doesn't mean they're irrelevant. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948. It's not a treaty. It has no enforcement mechanism. But it has become the foundation of international human rights law. It has been incorporated into national constitutions, cited in court decisions, used as the basis for treaties. A non-binding resolution, over time, became binding in practice.
That's the long game. The UNGA plants seeds. Some of them grow.
The Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the General Assembly in 2015. Again, non-binding. But they've shaped development policy around the world. Governments align their national plans with the SDGs. Aid agencies structure their programs around them. The goals don't have teeth, but they have gravity.
So the significance of the annual assembly is not in what's decided on the floor, because nothing is decided on the floor during the Debate. It's in what the event makes possible: the bilateral meetings, the informal negotiations, the signaling, the narrative-setting, the deadline effect.
The deadline effect is worth unpacking. Because the UNGA is not just a week of speeches. It's a fixed point on the calendar. Diplomats know that if they want face time with a foreign minister, UNGA week is the time to get it. So they front-load their negotiations. They save their announcements. They hold their most sensitive meetings. The week becomes a forcing function for the entire diplomatic calendar.
It's inefficient in some ways. You have 193 delegations trying to schedule meetings in the same five days, in the same few square blocks of Manhattan. The traffic is a nightmare. The security is overwhelming. But the inefficiency is part of the point. It concentrates attention. It creates a density of diplomatic activity that can't be replicated at any other time.
And the density creates serendipity. Chance encounters in corridors, at receptions, in elevators. Those unplanned moments can produce breakthroughs that formal meetings never would.
So the annual assembly is a coordination device, a signaling platform, a deadline mechanism, and a networking event. It's a lot of things at once.
And the permanent body is what makes the annual event possible. The UNGA has the staff, the infrastructure, the procedural rules, the committee structure. The annual session is the visible tip of a year-round operation. Without the permanent machinery, the annual frenzy would have no foundation.
So Daniel's question, does the annual assembly contradict the idea of a permanent body, the answer is no. The annual assembly is the point of the permanent body. The permanent body exists to make the annual assembly work.
The permanent body is the back office. The annual assembly is the storefront.
And the storefront is what brings in the customers.
Let me turn to the current context, because Daniel mentioned the U.S.-Iran war deadlock and the Greenland meeting, and I want to make sure we're being precise about what's happening.
The U.S.-Iran war deadlock. This is a situation where the two countries are locked in a conflict, either directly or through proxies, and neither side is willing to back down. The UNGA provides a forum where both can speak, even if they don't directly engage. It's a pressure valve.
The pressure valve function is real. When two countries are in a deadlock, the UNGA gives them a way to communicate without appearing to negotiate. They can state their positions publicly, signal their red lines, and gauge the other side's response. It's not a substitute for direct talks, but it's a way to keep the channel open.
And the Greenland meeting. The U.S. and Denmark have a dispute over security arrangements in Greenland. The UNGA gives them a neutral, convenient venue to meet. They don't have to choose a host country, they don't have to schedule a special summit. They just use the week that's already happening.
That's the functional forum in action. Daniel's phrase. The UNGA is a functional forum for multilateral dialogue all year, but the annual assembly is when that forum becomes politically useful for high-level bilateral meetings. The permanent body is the infrastructure, the annual event is the opportunity.
So the significance of the annual assembly, compared to the normal operating pace, is not in the volume of decisions. The normal operating pace produces more resolutions, more committee reports, more technical work. The annual assembly produces fewer formal outputs, but it produces more political impact.
Because the heads of state are there. That's the difference. A committee resolution is adopted by mid-level diplomats. A General Debate speech is delivered by a president or prime minister. The political weight is incomparable.
And the bilateral meetings on the sidelines are between principals, not deputies. The U.S. and Denmark are not sending assistant secretaries to talk about Greenland. They're sending their leaders, or their foreign ministers at least. That changes the substance of the conversation.
The annual assembly is significant not because it decides more, but because it involves more senior people. The normal operating pace is the work of the permanent bureaucracy. The annual assembly is the moment when the principals show up.
That's a clean way to put it. The permanent body is the bureaucracy. The annual assembly is the board meeting.
The board meeting where nothing is formally voted on, but where all the real decisions get made in the hallways.
That's the answer to Daniel's third question. How significant is this series of events in terms of what's actually decided? The formal decisions are minimal. The informal decisions, the negotiations, the signals, the narrative shifts, those are potentially enormous.
The Greenland meeting could produce a new security arrangement. The U.S.-Iran speeches could either escalate or de-escalate the conflict, depending on what's said. Those are real outcomes, even if they don't show up in the official record of the General Debate.
The UNGA is a theater, but it's a theater where the audience is also the cast, and the performance changes the script.
That's almost too neat.
I'll allow it.
Let me raise one more point about the history, because I think it bears on the current moment. The UNGA was designed in 1945, when there were 51 member states. Now there are 193. The General Debate has grown from a manageable exercise to a marathon. Each speaker gets about fifteen minutes, but with 193 speakers, that's over 48 hours of speeches, even if everyone sticks to their time.
They don't stick to their time.
They don't. Some leaders speak for an hour. The longest speech in UNGA history was Fidel Castro in 1960, four and a half hours. So the Debate stretches over several days, and the schedule becomes a logistical nightmare.
There have been calls to reform the format. Shorten the speeches, limit the number of speakers, move to a different structure. But the ritual persists, because the ritual serves a purpose. It forces the world to come together, even if only to talk.
The talk, even when it's empty, is not entirely empty. The fact that 193 countries show up and take turns speaking is itself a statement. It says that the international system, for all its flaws, still has a forum where every nation gets a voice.
That's the idealistic reading. The cynical reading is that it's a waste of time and money, a security nightmare, and a platform for dictators to launder their reputations.
Both readings are true. That's the thing about the UNGA. It's both.
The question is whether the idealistic function still matters in a world of instant communication and virtual diplomacy. Could the annual assembly be replaced by something more efficient? A video conference? A series of regional summits?
I don't think so, and I'll tell you why. The physical presence matters. A head of state in New York, sitting in the General Assembly hall, is a different thing from a head of state on a video screen. The bilateral meetings, the chance encounters, the informal negotiations, those require physical proximity. You can't have a chance encounter in a Zoom call.
The media moment requires physical presence too. The General Debate is a visual event. The leaders at the podium, the delegations in the hall, the protests outside. That imagery has power. A video conference doesn't generate the same gravity.
The ritual has value that transcends efficiency. The inefficiency is part of the point. It forces people to be in the same place at the same time, and that concentration creates possibilities that wouldn't exist otherwise.
That's the answer to the open question. Could the UNGA be replaced by something more efficient? Probably not, because the inefficiency is the feature, not the bug.
As global challenges become more complex, the forum for dialogue becomes more important, not less. The UNGA's inability to enforce decisions is a real limitation, but the alternative, no forum at all, is worse.
The UNGA is flawed, but it's the best available mechanism for bringing the world's leaders into one room once a year. And that, in itself, is worth something.
Let me pull us back to Daniel's framing, because I want to make sure we've answered the question directly. He asked why an assembly is needed if the institution already serves as a functional, permanent forum. The answer is that the permanent forum is the infrastructure, and the annual assembly is the moment when that infrastructure becomes politically salient. The permanent body does the technical work all year, but the annual event is what gives that work political weight.
The annual event is what creates the conditions for the real decisions, which happen on the sidelines, not on the floor. The Greenland meeting is a perfect example. The U.S.-Iran speeches are another. The formal outputs of the General Debate are minimal, but the informal outputs can be enormous.
The contradiction Daniel identified is not really a contradiction. The permanent body and the annual assembly are complementary. The permanent body is the machine, the annual assembly is the moment when the machine is put to its highest use.
The machine is always running, but once a year it hits full throttle.
The noise is deafening, but the noise is the point.
I think we've earned a break from our own metaphors.
Agreed. Let's hear from someone who's actually been in the room.
Hilbert: I was a protocol assistant for a mid-sized delegation during a high-level week in the late nineties. My job was the schedule. I had to know the exact timing of every bilateral, every speech, every reception. I still have the laminated schedule card from that week in a drawer.
Hilbert: The frenzy is the point. That's what you two have been circling. The speeches are for the cameras. The deals happen in the corridors and at the parties. I once saw two rival foreign ministers accidentally share an elevator. By the time they reached the lobby, they had agreed to a prisoner exchange.
Hilbert: One day on the card. Eight fifteen AM, bilateral with Norway. Nine AM, plenary speech. Ten thirty, coffee with the Saudis. Noon, lunch with the EU. Two PM, Security Council side event. Four PM, bilateral with Japan. Six PM, reception at the Turkish mission. Eight PM, dinner with the Secretary-General. That was one day. The real work was in the margins, the unscheduled encounters, the moments between the meetings.
The elevator story is the perfect illustration. You can't schedule that. You can't put it on the card. But it happens because the card exists, because everyone is in the same building at the same time.
The laminated card is the permanent body made visible. The schedule is the machinery. The elevator encounter is the annual assembly's real output.
Hilbert: I don't miss it. The traffic, the security, the endless receptions. But I understand why it persists. You can't replace that week with a video call.
The physical concentration is the thing. You can't replicate it remotely.
Hilbert: No. You can't.
The annual assembly is a coordination device that creates the conditions for uncoordinated moments. The schedule produces the unscheduled.
The unscheduled moments are where the real diplomacy happens. The prisoner exchange in the elevator. The Greenland negotiation on the sidelines. Those are the outputs that never show up in the official record.
The official record is the speeches. The real record is the deals.
Hilbert: The speeches matter too. They set the tone. They signal positions. But the deals are made in the margins.
That's the dual nature Daniel was asking about. The permanent forum is the stage, the annual assembly is the performance, and the real action is backstage.
The question of whether the annual assembly is significant, compared to the normal operating pace, the answer is that it's significant in a different way. The normal pace produces documents. The annual assembly produces moments.
Hilbert: I'd rather have the moments.
I think that's the right note to end on. The UNGA is a flawed institution, but it's the best mechanism we have for creating those moments, for bringing the world's leaders into one room once a year and letting the collisions happen.
As the world gets more complex, the collisions matter more. The forum for dialogue is not becoming obsolete. It's becoming more necessary.
The question is whether the ritual can adapt. The General Debate is a 1945 format in a 2026 world. But the ritual persists because the ritual works.
It works in a way that efficiency can't replicate. The inefficiency is the point.
That's the answer to Daniel's question. The annual assembly is not a contradiction of the permanent body. It's the permanent body's reason for being.
Thanks to our producer, Hilbert Flumingtop, for keeping the show running.
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