NEW YORK — The general debate of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly closed this week with a call to turn words into action, and the assembly should be commended for that, because it is the most honest sentence the institution has produced in eighty years.

The closing remarks of the 81st session acknowledged that the UN’s survival for eighty years is not, by itself, proof of success. That is a hard thing to say about yourself, and the assembly said it anyway, which is what institutions do when they have run out of other things to say. The 81st session’s president called on the body to confront painful truths if it hopes to rebuild public trust. The painful truth, as has been well-documented, is that the words have been excellent. The words have been, for eighty years, genuinely first-rate. The action, however, has remained a concept.

A delegate from a member state that prefers not to be quoted by name put it more plainly: the assembly has produced more words per capita than any organization in human history, and the words are now so numerous that they have begun to function as a physical resource. There is, he suggested, enough debate on record to furnish a mid-sized country.

Some say the UN should simply stop talking. Others say the talking is the whole point. The truth lies in a third position I just invented: the UN should keep talking, but it should start charging for it. A words-to-action pipeline, properly metered, would solve the trust problem overnight. Every speech would come with an itemized invoice, and the action would be whatever the invoice says happens next.

"We have survived eighty years. Nobody survives eighty years by accident. We did it by talking, and we are now being asked — politely, in writing — to do something else."

THE WORDS, ACCOUNTED FOR

  • Sessions: 81. Each one produced words. The words were logged.
  • The 81st session’s theme: Turning words into action — a theme so honest that several delegations asked for it to be reworded.
  • The record: The longest speech of the debate ran 41 minutes and contained zero action items, which the secretariat recorded as a personal best.
  • The trust plan: Confront painful truths, then rebuild trust. The order matters, and the assembly got the order right.

At press time, the 81st session had adjourned, the words had been filed, and the action had not yet arrived. A janitor in the hall, who has worked there for thirty-one years and is widely considered the assembly’s most effective member, was seen sweeping in front of the podium. He declined to comment on the words-to-action initiative. He said he had already turned his own words into action, once, in 1994, and it took eleven years to get a mop.