BRICS Summit 2026: The Legal Status of the New Delhi Declaration
Introduction
The BRICS Summit 2026 in New Delhi produced a declaration addressing armed conflict, unilateral economic measures, multilateral institutions, and reform of global governance. Adopted at the eighteenth BRICS Summit on 12 September 2026, the New Delhi Declaration records positions accepted across a grouping whose members often approach major international disputes from different strategic perspectives (Government of India, 2026; Reuters, 2026). On the available legal indicators, the declaration is best characterized as a political summit instrument rather than a treaty creating an autonomous set of binding obligations among BRICS members.
That classification reflects both the institutional setting of BRICS and the international law governing agreements between states. BRICS is an intergovernmental coordination forum without a constitutive treaty conferring general law-making authority on its summit or creating a permanent secretariat (BRICS, 2025). Its members remain capable of concluding binding agreements when they objectively manifest an intention to be legally bound, but consensus at a leaders’ summit does not itself establish such an intention. Under Article 2(1)(a) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the decisive inquiry is whether a written agreement between states is governed by international law, irrespective of the designation given to the instrument (United Nations, 1969).
Non-binding status does not deprive the New Delhi Declaration of legal significance. Some provisions may reaffirm obligations that BRICS members already owe under the UN Charter, other treaties, or customary international law. Other provisions may record collective legal positions on disputed questions, including unilateral economic measures, or influence later diplomatic and institutional conduct. Statements framed in legal terms may also have evidentiary relevance when assessing opinio juris, although an intergovernmental declaration cannot by itself create a rule of customary international law; the existence of custom still depends on general practice accepted as law (ILC, 2018).
The distinction is especially important in assessing the declaration’s treatment of unilateral sanctions and reform of the United Nations Security Council. A BRICS declaration may strengthen a coordinated challenge to particular economic measures or support institutional reform, but the legal consequences of those positions depend on rules that exist independently of the summit document. The legal status of the New Delhi Declaration is thus determined by separating the instrument’s own normative force from the treaty obligations, customary rules, institutional procedures, and subsequent state conduct with which its provisions may interact.
1. BRICS Summit 2026 and the Institutional Framework
The legal status of the New Delhi Declaration cannot be inferred from the political importance of the BRICS Summit 2026. BRICS cooperation is not organized through a constitutive treaty that establishes a general legislative or regulatory competence for the leaders’ summit. Its declarations emerge from intergovernmental coordination among the participating states rather than from an organ exercising powers delegated to it by a founding instrument.
That institutional structure is legally relevant because some international organizations possess authority, under their constituent treaties, to adopt decisions that bind their members. BRICS has no comparable general power. Agreement at the summit level can establish a common political position, but the binding force of that position cannot be presumed from the status of the participants or from consensus alone.
BRICS members nonetheless remain fully capable of creating international legal obligations among themselves. They may conclude treaties within the context of BRICS cooperation just as states may conclude treaties in other diplomatic settings. The relevant inquiry is consequently not whether BRICS can generate binding agreements, but whether a particular instrument was intended to operate as one.
1.1 BRICS as an intergovernmental coordination forum
BRICS developed as a mechanism for political, economic, and diplomatic coordination rather than through a single constituent treaty. Its institutional practice is organized around rotating presidencies, annual leaders’ summits, ministerial meetings, working groups, and other mechanisms through which members coordinate positions and initiatives. Consensus remains central to that practice (BRICS, n.d.).
The absence of a constitutive treaty distinguishes BRICS from organizations in which an organ derives binding decision-making powers from an agreed legal mandate. There is no general BRICS instrument conferring on the leaders’ summit an authority to legislate for members or to create binding obligations through summit declarations simply by adopting them.
Institutional informality does not make BRICS practice legally irrelevant. Coordinated positions may affect voting behavior in international organizations, shape negotiations, generate common diplomatic expectations, or provide evidence of how participating states understand particular legal questions. Those consequences attach to the conduct and positions of the states themselves rather than to an autonomous law-making authority vested in BRICS.
1.2 Summit declarations and binding BRICS agreements
BRICS practice demonstrates that its members distinguish summit declarations from instruments designed to establish legal institutions and obligations. At the Fortaleza Summit in 2014, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa concluded the Agreement on the New Development Bank. The same summit also produced the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (BRICS, 2014).
The Agreement on the New Development Bank contains features associated with a formal international agreement: rules on membership and capital, institutional organs, voting, legal personality, privileges and immunities, ratification, and entry into force. The Bank was thus created through a separate treaty instrument rather than merely through the political language of a leaders’ declaration.
This practice is significant but not conclusive. International law does not establish a rule under which BRICS summit declarations are necessarily non-binding. It does show that the participating states have used distinct legal instruments when establishing arrangements intended to operate under international law.
The New Delhi Declaration must consequently be assessed on its own legal character. BRICS institutional practice supplies context for that assessment, but the decisive question remains whether the states objectively manifested an intention to create obligations governed by international law.
2. When Does a Declaration Become an International Agreement?
International law does not determine the legal status of an interstate instrument by its title. Treaties have historically appeared under labels including convention, charter, protocol, exchange of notes, memorandum, agreed minutes, and declaration. Conversely, governments may adopt formally worded texts that are intended to remain political rather than legally binding.
Classification depends on what the states objectively agreed and the legal plane on which they placed that agreement. The wording of the instrument, its context, the circumstances of its adoption, and the conduct associated with it may all contribute to that determination. Political solemnity is relevant evidence, but it is not a substitute for legal intention.
This distinction is particularly important for summit declarations. Such documents often contain commitments, reaffirmations, and agreed positions while performing primarily diplomatic and coordinative functions. The use of normative language alone does not establish that every proposition was intended to create an international obligation.
2.1 The Vienna Convention test
Article 2(1)(a) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty as an international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law, irrespective of its particular designation (United Nations, 1969). The definition makes nomenclature legally secondary. A declaration can be a treaty, while an instrument bearing a more formal title may fail to qualify if the necessary legal intention is absent.
For present purposes, the decisive element is that the agreement must be “governed by international law.” States routinely reach understandings that regulate their relations without placing those understandings on the legal plane. Political agreements and other non-binding arrangements may be carefully negotiated and may generate serious expectations of compliance while remaining distinct from treaties (Klabbers, 2024).
Article 3 of the Vienna Convention reinforces the broader point that the Convention’s scope does not exhaust the universe of legally effective international agreements. It preserves, among other things, the legal force of agreements falling outside particular formal requirements of the Convention. That provision is secondary to the present inquiry, however, because the principal question raised by the New Delhi Declaration concerns legal intention rather than written form.
Intention is assessed through its objective manifestation. Undisclosed governmental views cannot normally displace the meaning conveyed by the instrument and its circumstances. The International Court of Justice has consequently examined the text and context of unconventional diplomatic instruments rather than treating their labels, or later descriptions supplied by one party, as decisive.
2.2 Informal agreements before the ICJ
The International Court of Justice addressed this problem directly in Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain. The dispute concerned, among other instruments, minutes signed at a meeting in Doha in December 1990. Bahrain argued that the minutes constituted no more than a record of negotiations. The Court disagreed, holding that they enumerated commitments accepted by the parties and constituted an international agreement creating rights and obligations (ICJ, 1994).
The significance of the judgment lies partly in the ordinary title of the instrument. “Minutes” would not normally be assumed to denote a treaty. The Court nevertheless examined the commitments recorded in the document and treated substance as more important than nomenclature. It also rejected reliance on an alleged internal intention inconsistent with the legal effect expressed by the terms of the instrument.
Aegean Sea Continental Shelf illustrates the opposite outcome. Greece relied on a joint communiqué issued after a meeting between the Greek and Turkish prime ministers as part of its jurisdictional argument before the Court. The ICJ accepted that a communiqué was not incapable, by reason of form alone, of constituting an international agreement. It nevertheless concluded that the particular text, read in its context, did not amount to the commitment alleged by Greece (ICJ, 1978).
These decisions establish no mechanical checklist. They show that declarations and other unconventional instruments occupy no predetermined category merely because of their form. The legal question is what the states objectively committed themselves to and whether the resulting arrangement was intended to operate under international law.
2.3 Consensus, representation, and registration
Consensus establishes acceptance of a text but does not resolve the legal character of that acceptance. BRICS routinely employs consensus in political coordination. A government may consent to a common policy statement without accepting that departure from every commitment in the statement would constitute a breach of international law.
The participation of heads of state or government also requires careful treatment. Under Article 7(2)(a) of the Vienna Convention, heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers are regarded as representing their states, without having to produce full powers, for acts relating to the conclusion of treaties (United Nations, 1969). That capacity does not mean that every instrument they adopt is a treaty; heads of state also approve political declarations and communiqués.
Registration under Article 102 of the UN Charter is equally non-determinative. Registration applies to treaties and international agreements already concluded by UN members and regulates, among other things, their invocation before UN organs (United Nations, 1945). In Qatar v Bahrain, the ICJ confirmed that non-registration or late registration does not itself affect the validity of an agreement. Registration is evidence surrounding an instrument, not the act that creates its binding character (ICJ, 1994).
3. Classifying the New Delhi Declaration
The New Delhi Declaration was adopted within the established practice of BRICS leaders issuing summit declarations that record common positions across political, economic, institutional, and diplomatic questions. That institutional function differs from the separate treaty practice through which BRICS states have created formal legal arrangements such as the New Development Bank.
Its classification nevertheless cannot rest on the word “declaration.” International law permits a declaration to constitute a binding agreement where the states objectively manifest such an intention. The question is whether the New Delhi instrument belongs to that category or instead records common political commitments within the continuing diplomatic practice of BRICS.
The stronger legal characterization is the latter. The declaration operates as a collectively approved summit instrument expressing shared positions and commitments rather than as a constitutive treaty for BRICS or a general agreement establishing reciprocal legal obligations among its members. Its provisions may still interact with binding international law in several ways, but those effects must be distinguished from the legal force of the declaration itself.
3.1 Intention to be legally bound
The terminology ordinarily found in summit diplomacy cannot answer the question by itself. Expressions such as “reaffirm,” “support,” “urge,” “call upon,” “agree,” or “commit” may appear in both binding and non-binding instruments. Their significance depends on the surrounding text, the subject addressed, and the legal context in which the states use them.
Treaties often contain structural indications that assist classification: defined obligations between parties, rules on consent to be bound, entry into force, amendment, termination, implementation, institutional powers, or dispute settlement. None is indispensable. Their presence or absence becomes relevant only as part of the broader inquiry into whether the parties placed their commitments under international law.
BRICS practice supplies additional context. When its members have established legal institutions or reciprocal arrangements intended to bind them, they have been capable of concluding separate formal agreements for that purpose. Against that practice, the leaders’ declaration is more convincingly understood as an instrument of political coordination unless particular provisions independently demonstrate an intention to create legal obligations.
3.2 Does the declaration create “BRICS law”?
The accumulation of BRICS declarations, ministerial statements, action plans, and institutional practices has produced an increasingly identifiable body of BRICS practice. That body of material may structure cooperation and generate expectations among members. It does not, merely through repetition, constitute a new formal source of international law.
Legal effects must instead be traced to recognized processes of international law. A proposition contained in successive BRICS declarations may reproduce an existing treaty obligation, correspond to customary international law, provide evidence relevant to the identification of a customary rule, or eventually be incorporated into a binding agreement. Each pathway has its own legal requirements.
Repeated diplomatic practice can nonetheless influence the international legal environment. Similar positions maintained across different forums may help clarify the legal views of participating states, affect treaty negotiations, or contribute to arguments about emerging custom. The existence of such influence does not require the creation of an autonomous “BRICS law.”
This distinction preserves the significance of BRICS practice without attributing legal authority that the grouping does not possess. Its members participate in international law both collectively and individually, but legal obligation continues to depend on the source from which the relevant rule derives.
4. Non-Binding Instruments and the Language of Soft Law
“Soft law” is often used to describe international norms or instruments that influence behavior without possessing the binding force associated with treaties or customary international law. The term encompasses a wide variety of texts, including declarations, guidelines, codes of conduct, and certain resolutions. Its usefulness is contested because those instruments differ greatly in origin, content, authority, and practical effect.
Some scholarship treats soft law as a meaningful category of international normativity: rules may guide conduct, shape expectations, and influence later legal development even though they are not independently enforceable as binding obligations. Contemporary accounts accordingly include non-binding outcomes of intergovernmental conferences among the instruments capable of performing such functions.
Other scholars object to describing these texts as “law.” Shelton distinguishes legally binding instruments from consciously non-binding commitments while recognizing that the latter may exert substantial political and normative influence (Shelton, 2009). Klabbers similarly questions terminology that appears to imply different degrees of legal bindingness, arguing that the label may obscure rather than resolve the distinction between law and non-law (Klabbers, 2024).
The disagreement is directly relevant to the New Delhi Declaration. Calling the document “soft law” does not determine what legal consequences follow from any particular provision. Those consequences can be identified only by asking whether a proposition restates existing law, provides evidence relevant to another source, contributes to later lawmaking, or remains solely a political commitment.
4.1 Political commitment and legal obligation
International responsibility arises from breach of an international legal obligation, not merely from failure to follow a political commitment. Article 2 of the International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts requires conduct attributable to the state that constitutes a breach of an international obligation of that state (ILC, 2001).
A BRICS member that departs from a non-binding summit commitment does not, for that reason alone, commit an internationally wrongful act. Responsibility may arise where the same conduct also violates a treaty, customary rule, or another binding obligation, but the legal wrong then derives from that independent source.
Political commitments can still impose practical constraints. Departure from a jointly adopted position may carry reputational consequences, complicate negotiations, weaken reciprocal confidence, or affect cooperation within the grouping. These costs explain why compliance with non-binding instruments can be substantial without collapsing the distinction between diplomatic expectation and legal responsibility.
4.2 Existing law restated in a political instrument
A non-binding declaration may contain propositions that are independently binding. If BRICS members reaffirm obligations arising under the UN Charter, another treaty, or customary international law, the declaration neither creates nor diminishes those obligations. Their binding force continues to derive from the underlying legal source.
This distinction is especially clear where a political text restates Charter principles. A reaffirmation of sovereign equality, peaceful settlement, or the prohibition on the use of force may carry diplomatic and interpretive significance, but UN members are bound by the relevant Charter obligations because of the Charter itself, not because they repeated them in a summit declaration.
The same analytical rule applies to other fields of international law. A political instrument may endorse humanitarian rules, human rights standards, trade principles, or institutional obligations without becoming the source of those rules. The relevant treaty or customary norm must be identified independently before legal responsibility can be attributed to its breach.
Non-binding instruments can also have evidentiary or developmental significance. The International Law Commission has stated that a resolution adopted by an international organization or at an intergovernmental conference cannot, of itself, create a rule of customary international law, although it may provide evidence for determining the existence and content of a customary rule or contribute to its development (ILC, 2018). The same discipline is required when assessing the New Delhi Declaration: a collectively stated legal position may be relevant to opinio juris, but customary law still requires general practice accepted as law.
5. Can the Declaration Influence Customary International Law?
A non-binding declaration can contribute to the processes through which customary international law is identified or develops, but it does not become customary law through repetition alone. The orthodox test remains a general practice accepted as law: sufficiently general state practice must be accompanied by opinio juris (ILC, 2018).
The International Law Commission addresses collective intergovernmental texts directly. Conclusion 12 of its Conclusions on Identification of Customary International Law states that a resolution adopted by an international organization or at an intergovernmental conference cannot, of itself, create a rule of customary international law. It may nevertheless provide evidence for determining the existence and content of a customary rule or contribute to its development (ILC, 2018).
The New Delhi Declaration must consequently be located within a wider evidentiary record. Its relevance depends on the legal character of particular statements, the conduct of BRICS members, the positions those states adopt in other forums, and the extent to which comparable practice and legal conviction exist beyond the grouping.
5.1 The declaration as possible evidence of opinio juris
Opinio juris concerns whether states regard particular conduct as legally required, permitted, or prohibited. Official statements, diplomatic communications, pleadings, national legal positions, votes and explanations of vote in international organizations, and collective declarations may all provide relevant evidence (ILC, 2018).
The language used is important. A statement that conduct is prohibited by international law carries a different evidentiary implication from a call for states to pursue a preferred policy. Condemnation, aspiration, or institutional advocacy cannot automatically be converted into a claim about existing law.
Consensus confirms that participating governments accepted the negotiated text, but it does not establish that they shared an identical legal rationale. Diplomatic formulations often accommodate governments whose legal views, strategic interests, or practice differ. The inference of opinio juris is correspondingly stronger where legal terminology is precise and supported elsewhere in the state’s conduct.
A BRICS position repeated before the United Nations, defended in national statements, and reflected in actual governmental behavior may form part of a more persuasive evidentiary pattern. The declaration is then relevant as one manifestation of a legal position, not as an independent source of custom.
5.2 The requirement of corresponding state practice
Verbal endorsement cannot normally substitute for the practice element of customary international law. The practice relied upon must be sufficiently widespread, representative, and consistent, assessed together with evidence that states accept it as law (ILC, 2018).
The geographical and political breadth of BRICS may make a common position relevant, but membership diversity does not satisfy the requirement of generality. Practice and legal views outside the grouping remain indispensable, especially where the asserted customary rule is disputed.
Differences among BRICS members can also limit what may be inferred from a common declaration. Governments may endorse identical language while maintaining different sanctions policies, jurisdictional positions, treaty interpretations, or voting practices. Such divergence does not eliminate the evidentiary value of the declaration, but it may weaken an argument that the text reflects a settled customary rule.
6. Unilateral Measures and the Declaration’s Legal Effect
Contemporary reporting on the New Delhi Declaration confirms that BRICS members expressed concern about unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures that distort trade (Reuters, 2026). That verified formulation is narrower than some language used in earlier BRICS declarations concerning unilateral coercive measures, economic sanctions, and secondary sanctions. The 2025 Rio de Janeiro Declaration, for example, expressly addressed unilateral coercive measures considered contrary to international law (BRICS, 2025).
The distinction is important. The 2026 language should not be treated as establishing a general BRICS legal position on every form of unilateral sanction unless the final authoritative text supports that conclusion. What can be assessed with confidence is the broader legal problem raised by BRICS opposition to unilateral economic pressure.
International law does not regulate “sanctions” as a single category. Measures described politically by that term may engage the UN Charter, state responsibility, treaty obligations, international economic law, jurisdiction, or other legal regimes. Their legality depends on the applicable rule, not on the label attached to the measure.
6.1 “Sanctions” is not a single legal category
Measures decided by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter occupy a distinct legal position. Article 41 authorizes the Council to decide measures not involving the use of armed force, including interruption of economic relations and communications. When the Council adopts binding decisions within its competence, UN members may be required to implement them under the Charter (United Nations, 1945).
Autonomous restrictions imposed by states or regional organizations require separate analysis. Some measures amount to retorsion: unfriendly conduct that nonetheless remains within the acting state’s legal rights. Economic or diplomatic pressure does not become unlawful merely because the targeted state experiences serious consequences.
Other restrictions may conflict with treaty obligations. Import bans, financial restrictions, asset measures, or export controls may engage trade agreements, investment protections, bilateral commitments, or other specific regimes. Exceptions and justifications under those instruments may then become decisive.
Secondary sanctions present a different set of difficulties because they seek to influence transactions involving foreign persons or companies outside the sanctioning state. Such measures have generated objections concerning jurisdiction, sovereignty, extraterritorial regulation, and international economic obligations. No single general rule of international law resolves every form of secondary sanction.
A legal assessment must consequently begin with the measure itself: who adopted it, against whom it operates, which conduct it regulates, what jurisdictional connection is asserted, and which international obligations bind the acting state. The generic expression “unilateral sanctions” cannot answer those questions.
6.2 Retorsion and countermeasures
Countermeasures differ from retorsion because they involve conduct that would otherwise be inconsistent with an international obligation. Article 22 of the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts provides that wrongfulness is precluded, within the applicable limits, where the act constitutes a lawful countermeasure taken against the responsible state (ILC, 2001).
Articles 49–53 impose significant restrictions. Countermeasures must be directed toward inducing compliance with the obligations arising from the prior internationally wrongful act and must, as far as possible, permit resumption of performance. They must also be proportionate to the injury suffered, taking account of the gravity of the wrongful act and the rights involved (ILC, 2001).
Article 50 protects certain obligations from suspension through countermeasures, including the prohibition on the threat or use of force, fundamental human rights obligations, humanitarian obligations prohibiting reprisals, and obligations arising under peremptory norms. Article 52 adds procedural requirements, while preserving the possibility of urgent measures necessary to protect the injured state’s rights.
More difficult questions arise where measures are taken by states that are not themselves injured. Article 54 deliberately leaves open the position of states responding to breaches of obligations protecting collective interests. Claims that international law clearly permits or clearly prohibits all third-state countermeasures would go beyond the degree of doctrinal agreement reflected in the Articles and their commentary.
6.3 Is there a general prohibition on unilateral sanctions?
BRICS criticism of coercive economic measures cannot by itself establish a customary prohibition on autonomous sanctions as a class. Earlier declarations have asserted that unilateral coercive measures contrary to international law should be rejected, but that formulation already presupposes the need to identify the rule that makes the particular measure unlawful (BRICS, 2025).
Some autonomous measures may breach treaty obligations, exceed permissible jurisdiction, or violate another applicable rule. Others may constitute lawful retorsion or satisfy the requirements governing countermeasures. Treating these measures as legally equivalent would obscure rather than clarify the governing law.
Repeated BRICS statements may nonetheless contribute evidence concerning the legal positions of participating states. Their significance for opinio juris depends on whether governments characterize a practice as legally prohibited, whether their own conduct is consistent with that position, and how states outside BRICS respond to the asserted rule.
7. Conflict Language and Existing Charter Obligations
The verified public account of the New Delhi Declaration records “deep concern” about escalating conflict in the Middle East, a call for maximum restraint, and renewed support for peaceful resolution through dialogue, consultation, and diplomacy (Reuters, 2026). These formulations demonstrate how a political declaration may engage legal concepts without itself becoming the source of the underlying obligations.
A call for restraint may carry considerable diplomatic weight without corresponding to a single autonomous rule applicable in every circumstance. By contrast, peaceful settlement and the prohibition of force are governed by established Charter obligations. The distinction prevents political language from being treated either as legally irrelevant or as automatically binding.
BRICS consensus also does not confer adjudicative authority. A collective position on how an international conflict should be addressed cannot conclusively determine whether particular conduct complies with the UN Charter. That question remains governed by the applicable legal rules and the relevant facts.
7.1 Peaceful settlement under the UN Charter
Article 2(3) of the UN Charter requires members to settle their international disputes by peaceful means so that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. Article 33 further requires parties to disputes whose continuation is likely to endanger international peace and security to seek a solution through negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, regional arrangements, or other peaceful means of their choice (United Nations, 1945).
The New Delhi language favoring dialogue, consultation, and diplomacy is consistent with that broader Charter commitment. It does not mean that those particular diplomatic methods are the exclusive lawful means of dispute settlement. The Charter deliberately recognizes several mechanisms.
The prohibition on the threat or use of force under Article 2(4) remains analytically separate. Whether a specific use of force is unlawful requires consideration of the circumstances and any relevant Charter justification, including the law of self-defense under Article 51. A summit declaration cannot substitute for that inquiry.
The legal significance of the declaration lies instead in the collective reaffirmation of a peaceful approach to international disputes. That position may reinforce existing Charter principles politically and provide evidence of how participating states frame the dispute, while leaving the governing obligations anchored in the Charter itself.
8. Security Council Reform and BRICS Political Influence
Reform of the United Nations Security Council formed part of the wider political agenda at the 2026 New Delhi summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly renewed India’s demand for reform and greater representation for emerging and developing states, while BRICS has supported changes to global governance institutions across successive presidencies (Reuters, 2026; BRICS, 2025).
This point must be distinguished from the verified contents of the New Delhi Declaration. The public record available on 12 September 2026 confirms Security Council reform as part of the summit’s political debate, but the legal analysis does not depend on attributing a particular reform formula to the declaration itself.
The institutional question remains straightforward: neither the BRICS summit nor a BRICS leaders’ declaration possesses constituent authority over the United Nations. Reform requiring alteration of the Charter can occur only through the amendment procedures established by the Charter.
8.1 Amendment under Articles 108 and 109
Article 108 provides the ordinary amendment procedure. An amendment enters into force for all UN members when adopted by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and ratified, in accordance with their respective constitutional processes, by two-thirds of the UN membership, including all permanent members of the Security Council (United Nations, 1945).
The permanent members consequently possess an indispensable role at the ratification stage. Even overwhelming political support in the General Assembly cannot bring a Charter amendment into force if one permanent member does not ratify it.
Article 109 provides a separate mechanism for a General Conference to review the Charter. Such a conference may be convened by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. Alterations recommended by two-thirds of the conference remain subject to ratification by two-thirds of UN members, including all permanent members.
Not every institutional reform requires Charter amendment. Certain changes in Security Council working methods or procedural practices may occur within the existing Charter framework. Structural reform of membership or Charter-based voting arrangements is different because those questions are regulated by the Charter itself.
BRICS can promote reform, coordinate negotiating positions, and mobilize support among developing states. None of those political functions displaces the amendment requirements applicable to structural change.
8.2 China and Russia within the amendment process
China and Russia occupy a distinctive position because both are BRICS members and permanent members of the Security Council. Their support for a particular amendment would remove two of the five potential permanent-member obstacles at the ratification stage.
It would not be sufficient. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States are equally indispensable under Articles 108 and 109, and the required two-thirds of the broader UN membership must also ratify the amendment.
Political endorsement within BRICS also cannot be equated with ratification of a future Charter amendment. Ratification concerns a specific adopted amendment and must occur through each state’s constitutional processes. Summit diplomacy can influence that process but cannot perform it in advance.
9. The Legal Effects the Declaration Can Produce
The legal significance of the New Delhi Declaration is not exhausted by the question of whether it constitutes a treaty. Non-binding interstate instruments may record legal positions, reaffirm existing obligations, influence negotiations, contribute evidence relevant to customary international law, and guide later governmental or institutional action.
These consequences arise through different legal mechanisms. They should neither be collapsed into a generalized category of “soft law” nor treated as proof that the declaration is legally binding.
The central requirement is to identify the source of each asserted legal effect. Where an obligation exists independently of the declaration, the declaration may reaffirm or interpret a position concerning that obligation without replacing its legal source.
9.1 Interpretive and evidentiary significance
A collective declaration may provide evidence of how participating governments understand a legal proposition. The weight of that evidence depends on the precision of the language, its legal framing, its consistency with other positions, and subsequent conduct.
Treaty interpretation presents a more specific question. Article 31(3)(a) of the Vienna Convention requires that account be taken of a subsequent agreement between the parties regarding interpretation of the treaty or application of its provisions. Article 31(3)(b) concerns subsequent practice establishing the agreement of the parties regarding interpretation (United Nations, 1969).
A BRICS declaration adopted by only some parties to a broadly multilateral treaty cannot simply be treated as a subsequent agreement of all parties. It may establish the interpretive position of participating governments, but the legal weight of that position must be assessed within the wider treaty framework.
This limitation is especially relevant to the UN Charter. BRICS states may advance collective interpretations concerning sovereignty, economic coercion, dispute settlement, or institutional reform. Those positions form part of international legal argument but do not authoritatively determine the Charter’s meaning for the wider UN membership.
9.2 Implementation through later legal acts
Political commitments may later acquire binding form through treaties or other legally operative acts. BRICS members may conclude a subsequent agreement, establish an institution through treaty, or undertake obligations within another international organization. The later instrument then supplies the legal basis for the resulting obligation.
Subsequent implementation does not retrospectively transform the earlier declaration into a treaty. The parties, scope, entry into force, conditions, and legal consequences remain those of the later instrument.
Domestic legislation or executive measures can likewise implement a summit commitment within national legal systems. Their enforceability arises from domestic constitutional and statutory authority rather than directly from the BRICS declaration.
9.3 Political weight without autonomous legal force
A declaration adopted by major states can exert substantial diplomatic influence without constituting an independently enforceable agreement. It may affect negotiating agendas, coalition formation, institutional priorities, or the terminology through which governments frame contested legal questions.
Its impact may extend beyond BRICS when other states respond to the positions expressed or when proposals migrate into negotiations within the United Nations and other institutions. This is one way non-binding diplomacy can influence the environment in which international law develops.
Influence, however, is not a source of obligation. Repetition by politically powerful states cannot by itself create a treaty rule or satisfy the elements of customary international law.
The converse is equally important. Non-binding status does not make the declaration legally invisible. Its provisions may provide evidence of state positions, reinforce existing norms, contribute to customary-law arguments, or lead to later instruments possessing independent legal force.
The appropriate analysis is consequently disaggregated. Each claimed effect must be traced to the legal mechanism capable of producing it.
Also read
Conclusion
On the public record available on 12 September 2026, the New Delhi Declaration is best characterized as a consensus political declaration rather than a treaty establishing an autonomous body of binding BRICS obligations. The designation “declaration” does not decide the issue. The conclusion follows from the institutional character of BRICS, the established function of leaders’ declarations, and the absence in the presently verified record of indications that the document as a whole was intended to operate as an international agreement governed by international law.
That classification is deliberately narrower than a claim that every provision lacks legal relevance. Statements reproducing treaty or customary obligations remain connected to those independent sources, while legally framed propositions may provide evidence of state positions or opinio juris. Subsequent state conduct may also contribute to the formation or identification of customary international law.
The declaration’s treatment of unilateral trade measures illustrates the distinction. BRICS criticism may influence debates over economic coercion, trade restrictions, and sanctions, but it cannot itself establish a universal customary prohibition where international law continues to distinguish among retorsion, countermeasures, treaty violations, jurisdictional questions, and other forms of state conduct.
The same division between political influence and legal competence applies to Security Council reform. BRICS can intensify diplomatic pressure for institutional change, and the participation of China and Russia gives the grouping particular political relevance. Any structural amendment of the UN Charter remains governed by Articles 108 and 109. The New Delhi Declaration can shape international legal argument and subsequent diplomacy; it does not replace the sources and procedures through which international obligations become binding.
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