1. Here is a redundancy. For three days, New York has been the capital of the world. The UN General Assembly has staged, through speeches by the main heads of state or government, how tangled the planet is. Behind the lectern, and too busy reading the acrylic teleprompter, everyone has their say. Each leader says what they think their audience wants to hear, the majority speak on behalf of their own country's exclusive interests, and some naive Europeans still go around clutching lilies, calling for diplomacy, international law, and multilateralism as the only possible way out of all the evils, which are not few. There has been talk of the war in Iran, the one in Ukraine, the one in Gaza, or the one in Sudan. And Javier Milei, as much in his own world as anyone else, still claims the Falklands as “a national cause.” By the way, the president of Argentina craps on the UN... but he was there.

On September 26, we saw its distinctive green marble again following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the UN General Assembly. Where was Netanyahu speaking from? Like any other building, the General Assembly is located somewhere specific, obviously. The complex is located on the seafront, in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, and occupies some seven hectares, including the Secretariat building (the famous 39-story tower we've seen in a thousand images), the General Assembly building, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, and the conference building. Despite being physically within the United States, these seven hectares are not subject to US jurisdiction: they have extraterritorial legal status. The UN's own statute applies there, and the diplomats working there enjoy immunity. Then there are the headquarters in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi, as well as the various agencies (for example, UNESCO in Paris). In any case, it's clear that the most symbolic body of the UN is the General Assembly. It is located in the same city that gave birth to one of its worst critics: US President Donald Trump.