BRICS Summit Declaration Challenges Unilateral Sanctions and Calls for Shifts in Global Power Structures
Leaders at the BRICS summit in New Delhi adopted a declaration urging an end to unilateral and secondary sanctions and backed calls for changes in global financial and security governance. Host India framed the text as a guide to the bloc’s future, while Russia highlighted BRICS’ role in reshaping international power balances.
The BRICS summit in New Delhi has produced a declaration that pushes back against Western economic pressure tools and presses for reforms to the way global finance and security are run.
According to the declaration, BRICS countries called for the lifting of unilateral and secondary sanctions, describing such measures as illegal. These are restrictions imposed by one country or group of countries without a United Nations mandate, and secondary sanctions are those that target third parties doing business with the original sanctioned state.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the summit declaration contains clear guidelines on the direction of the bloc’s development. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the 18th BRICS Summit, described BRICS as among the key centers of global governance and said that major global institutions were created under older political and economic conditions and now need to adapt as business activity shifts toward developing countries.
Putin also called for reform of global financial governance, saying that institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization were established in different circumstances and must change for a new era. He argued that the global balance of power is moving toward growth hubs in the Global South and East, and said that former colonial powers resist this transition to a more multipolar world order.
At the same summit, sources in the Indian government told Sputnik that BRICS countries have agreed on wording referring to two geopolitical crises: the blockade of Cuba and the war in the Middle East. According to those diplomatic sources, Cuba and Iran are to be mentioned in the BRICS 2026 joint declaration.
In a symbolic gesture, leaders including Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian joined a tree‑planting ceremony at the New Delhi summit. They planted banyan trees, described as a symbol of joining forces for the future. The banyan is believed to have the largest canopy spread of any tree in the world, an image BRICS media outlets linked to the bloc’s ambitions.
Modi has argued that the current structure of global governance resembles a pyramid, with power and decision‑making concentrated at the top and countries at the bottom experiencing the effects of those decisions without being able to shape them. That framing resonates with the bloc’s calls for more representation of the Global South in institutions such as the UN Security Council.
Signals to watch include whether BRICS members move from statements to concrete steps, such as new financial tools, coordinated positions in international bodies or legal efforts targeting unilateral sanctions. How Western governments respond—through limited reforms, outreach to developing states, or firmer defense of existing rules—will show how far this confrontation over global governance is likely to go.
Sources
- OSINT