BRICS Leaders Adopt New Delhi Declaration, Push for UN Reform and Ceasefire in Gaza

The leaders of the eleven-member BRICS block have all agreed on the New Delhi Declaration on Saturday at the 18th BRICS Summit by ironing out their differences regarding the conflict in West Asia between Iran and the UAE.

At the two-day summit hosted at Bharat Mandapam as part of India's 2026 chairmanship, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, among others, were present at the summit. The negotiators have been reported to stay up until Friday evening ironing out the wording about the conflict between Iran and US and Iran's attacks on the UAE.

What the Declaration Says

It advocates the need for a better represented world order through reforms to the United Nations, especially the Security Council, in order to give more weightage to the developing nations in the decision making processes which affect them. It supports the need for preventive actions as opposed to unilateral military interventions and expresses concerns over the tariffs and non-tariffs which distort trade and contravene World Trade Organization policies.

Regarding Gaza, the group refers to the UN Security Council Resolution 2803, appeals to all the parties concerned to uphold the cease fire agreement, calls for unhindered humanitarian access and opposes any displacement of Palestinians – while at the same time reiterating its support for a two state solution as well as Palestinian membership of the UN. Moreover, it strongly condemns terrorism “in all its forms”, particularly the attack in April 2025 at Pahalgam which killed 26 people.

On the economic side, members agreed to keep expanding local-currency trade settlement and cross-border payment interoperability, while advancing the BRICS Economic Partnership 2030. The bloc also flagged artificial intelligence, critical minerals, food security and disaster resilience as priority areas, in keeping with the summit's theme, “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

Modi's Reform Pitch and the Road Ahead

Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his address to argue that the Global South remains in the “back row of decision-making” despite facing the brunt of global crises, and proposed that BRICS jointly draft ten governance-reform proposals to build into a formal roadmap by the next summit. He also floated a standing “BRICS Continuity and Implementation Mechanism” so that priorities don't reset each time the annual chairship rotates, and separately urged businesses at the BRICS Business Forum to eliminate top trade barriers and target 1,000 new cross-border business partnerships a year.

Putin, addressing the Business Forum a day earlier, argued that BRICS economies have outproduced the G7 in GDP terms over the past five years — a claim aimed at Western critics who have questioned the bloc's relevance. China takes over the BRICS chairship in 2027, when the 19th summit will be held in Beijing. Alongside the diplomacy, New Delhi also hosted a “BRICS Bazaar” at the National Crafts Museum, spotlighting artisans from member and partner nations, and welcomed leaders from Vietnam, Malaysia and Ethiopia for bilateral talks on the summit's sidelines.

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