UNITED NATIONS — Speakers at the United Nations General Assembly’s annual general debate exceeded the Assembly’s voluntary 15-minute time limit by a combined 11 years during the debate’s first three days, according to a Secretariat official who asked not to be named because she was still operating the podium light.
The general debate, the centerpiece of the Assembly’s 81st session, opened Tuesday in the General Assembly Hall. Under longstanding guidance, each delegation is asked to keep its statement to 15 minutes, a request the official said is printed on the speakers’ list, repeated in a letter to every mission, and signaled at the podium by a light that turns on when a speaker’s time has expired. The Assembly does not cut off heads of state or government, and the light has historically been treated as decorative.
“Every one of them has said, ‘I will be brief.’ Many of them have said it more than once an hour,” the official said. “One delegation said it at 9:15 Tuesday morning. They are still being brief. I’ve been told they are approaching a conclusion, but I’ve been told that since Tuesday, and their conclusion has 14 parts.”
According to a schedule distributed Thursday afternoon, the overruns have pushed the Assembly’s final scheduled speaker, originally expected late next week, to an estimated March 2038. A delegation from the south that opened its address Tuesday with the words “In closing” has now been closing for 56 hours, and has been moved by protocol staff to a smaller podium in the corridor so that others can begin. A delegation from the east is midway through a statement on the subject of efficiency, which is in its third day and its fourth binder. Interpreters in the booths above the hall are working in rotations and have begun to interpret not only the speeches but also one another’s sighs, which the official described as “perfectly accurate in all six official languages.” Several delegations scheduled for Friday have been reassigned to a date in 2031 and have thanked the Assembly for the opportunity to prepare.
Conditions in the hall were described by delegates as orderly. Seating proceeds alphabetically from a starting country drawn by lot, a practice that has been maintained throughout, though the delegation now seated at the front has been there long enough that its chairs have been replaced once. Coffee in the Delegates’ Lounge, which was rated “acceptable” on Tuesday and “acceptable, regrettably” on Wednesday, was reported Thursday to be on its 212th pot. The room temperature has held at 71 degrees, which no delegation has formally contested.
Prof. Desmond Achterberg, who holds the Prewitt Chair in Comparative Annoyance at Ellery State University, said the phrase “I will be brief” has a distinguished diplomatic history. “The scholarship traces it to a 1648 treaty negotiation, where it was first spoken by an envoy who then talked for eight days,” Achterberg said. “It is not a promise. It is a ceremonial opening, like the ringing of a bell. No one has ever expected the bell to be brief.”
Late Thursday, the Assembly adopted by consensus a resolution reaffirming the 15-minute limit. The reading of the resolution’s preamble, which begins “Mindful of the value of brevity,” was in its fifth hour at press time.