How to stop fighting the wrong voices at the UN.

On normative vs. consultative comments.

Happy Saturday,

You are not in that room to react. You are there to move text.

Most indigenous advocates never get told that.

They show up prepared, passionate, and completely wired to respond to everything. Every hostile comment feels like an attack on the people they represent. Every intervention that misnames or conflates or dismisses gets a response.

That reflex kept Indigenous movements alive for decades. I respect it fully.

Today, it can also get you killed in a negotiation room.

I learned this the hard way.

Early on, I was that person. Someone takes the floor and says something that conflicts with something I said, conflicts with everything we fought for, and I am already drafting my 500 word response before they finish the sentence. Chair, allow me to respond. Chair, we would like to clarify.

Every session. Every hostile comment. Every time.

I walked out exhausted. I burned favors on the wrong fights. And when the comment that actually mattered came, the one that could genuinely destabilize the text, I had nothing left and nobody left to call.

I was responding to volume. Not weight.

Here is what I know now.

Not every voice in a room carries the same weight. But the filter changes depending on where you are.

• In treaty negotiations like BBNJ, the filter is ratification status. Before every session I build a two-column list. Signed and not signed. Ratified and not ratified.
  
  That list stays open the entire session.
  
  When a comment comes in, I run it through the list immediately. That classification tells me everything. Two types of comments exist in that room.
  

  • Normative comments come from those that have signed or ratified. Their objection can break consensus. That is the comment you mobilize against. Fast. That is when you call your capital contacts, activate your allies, and take the floor.
    

  • Consultative comments come from everyone else. Non-parties, non-signatories. They can get something on the record. They cannot break the package. (Disclaimer: At the end of the day they can find a way)

  
  An example:
  
  BBNJ PrepCom 3, final week. Observer participation language for Indigenous Peoples is on the table. Iran intervenes. Nicaragua intervenes. The colleague next to me is nudging me: “Push back….push back….you need to say something.”

  
  I did not move.

  Neither state had signed on to the agreement. Their comments were consultative. Loud. Documented. Not important enough to spend my intervention seconds on. I noted the signal and kept on going.
  

• At the Human Rights Council, the filter has two layers.

  
  First layer, I check the traditional co-sponsor list. Those are the states that publicly attached their name to the text. If one of them starts saying something unexpected in informal consultations, that is a real signal. That is a relationship that needs attention before the tabling deadline. A co-sponsor drifting is a problem. A hostile state being hostile is not, by itself, a problem.

  
  But I do respond to hostile states at HRC. Just not automatically. Here’s layer two. Two things drive that decision:
  

  • One is whether it is the Indigenous-specific resolution or a broader one where Indigenous Peoples are one paragraph among many. In the Indigenous resolution I respond more readily because the entire text is the fight. In a broader resolution, a hostile comment on one Indigenous paragraph from an isolated state gets noted and addressed very briefly.
    

  • The second thing is traction. Is this hostile state speaking for themselves or are they pulling others with them. If delegations are nodding, or the same position starts appearing across two or three blocs, that is not an isolated comment anymore. That is an emerging problem in the text.
    

One hostile state, broad resolution, no visible traction. I note it and move on. Indigenous-specific resolution, or a hostile position gaining visible support anywhere in the room. I take the floor.

The principle running through all of this.

Before every session, know your filter.

In treaty negotiations, build your two-column list. Signed or not signed. Ratified and not ratified. At the HRC, know your co-sponsor list cold and read the room for traction.

Then when comments come in, run them through the filter first. One question before anything else: Does this voice have the weight to actually move something?

If no, note it and move on. If yes, move everything.

The room will always give you more to react to than you have capacity for. Your job is not to respond to every voice. Your job is to choose correctly.

That is what separates someone who participates from someone who shapes outcomes.

The seat is worthless without the script.

That is the difference between participating in a negotiation and navigating one.

That’s it for this week.

Catch you next Saturday!

Btw, this is what you missed this week:

• I showed three rules for tweaking any negotiating text. If your edit fails any of them, do not propose it. I have never shared these before.

• I used a phone charger to explain how you keep connection points open in treaty architecture. That sixty-second visual is worth more than any strategy document I have written.

• A co-chair gave me two minutes. I took one. I showed exactly how listening to the room cuts your speaking time in half and doubles your impact.

• The ambassador of Vanuatu said something over kava in Alphabet City that made three of us go silent. I unpacked the difference between tactics and principles and why only one of them scales.

• I laid out the one red line I will not cross on Indigenous representation. And I showed why I would choose a worse seat every single time if it means we pick who sits in it.

• I explained why FPIC breaks down at version six. If you work on anything related to data, genetic resources, or traditional knowledge, this changes how you think about consent.

• I used a toothbrush to explain why most people’s approach to diplomacy guarantees failure.

• The closing plenary went sideways. I shared the two text messages I sent to the IITC group chat in real time. And then I did the post-mortem: What we kept, what we lost, what is still open, and why the framework that got us there still works

• I showed how I calculate mid-week whether a proposal will survive the next text iteration. I did the math on Friday. By Sunday, I was right.

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