Why I Still Love UNGA After All These Years

Don't fall for the cynics: good stuff still happens at the UN!

Photo by Tomas Eidsvold on Unsplash

For most people in the foreign policy world, the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York each September tends to elicit reactions ranging from exasperation to eye-rolls.

Among journalists, there’s a too-cool-for-school attitude toward UNGA. It’s hip to complain about it, and I understand why. The logistics of covering world leaders at the UN during High-Level Week can be a nightmare. It’s not a pleasant experience, like, say, covering a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, in July. It really is exhausting.

Among the broader foreign policy commentariat — think tankers and the like — there’s a broadly cynical attitude toward UNGA: Lots of speeches, but no real action — it’s self-serving pageantry. I get that too. There’s definitely a superficiality to it. Important people (and people who think they are important) make grandiose pronouncements about the state of the world in a building that does not seem able to live …