NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- The session France organized for Wednesday was designed to produce a specific kind of failure. Not disorder. The chamber proceeded with formal courtesy, five frontier AI executives delivered measured statements, and fifteen member-state delegations took turns at the microphone. The failure was structural, predetermined, and deliberate. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot knew before he called the session to order that no binding outcome was possible. He organized it anyway, for reasons that have more to do with institutional architecture than with artificial intelligence.

The United States holds a permanent seat on the Security Council. It holds a veto. Any resolution with enforcement mechanisms requires Washin...