The Kazan BRICS Declaration — a New World Order Manifesto

The Kazan BRICS Declaration—is a sizeable document containing 134 points, some of which make quite long paragraphs. The Declaration outlines the shared group’s vision of the current state of international system, common or overlapping approaches to fundamental global problems and regional crises, as well as perceptions of the contours for the desirable and attainable world order as seen by the members of the group. Though there are no specific schedules or road maps in the Declaration, It does cover a number of key goals that the group should or could pursue within the next couple of years. It is clear that the document reflects a lot of thorough and persistent work done by experts and governmental officials at various levels meeting in multilateral formats over the last couple of months.

Going through the text of the Declaration, one can observe that it contains a well-calibrated balance between the security and the development agendas. This balance suggests that the group decided to keep its mandate deliberately broad and it is not going to focus its future activities on something more specific—like, for instance, on promoting trade among members of the group. Instead, BRICS intends to position itself as an important global governance lab, where they can test new models of multilateral cooperation and innovative patterns of addressing critical problems of global economy, trade, finances, strategic stability, non-proliferation, reforming the United Nations system, fighting against terrorism, managing climate change, regulating trans-border migrations and so on. The political ‘investment portfolio’ of the group is quite diversified, which raises the chances of success in at least some of the ongoing BRICS initiatives.

On the development side, BRICS has faced a choice between trying to reform existing, mostly West-centered, institutions and aspiring to create efficient ‘BRICS signature’ alternatives to them. The Declaration suggests that the group intends to explore both opportunities: it calls for institutional changes within old multilateral bodies like IMF or IBRD, and at the same time declares its intention to go ahead with Non-Western institutional alternatives to these bodies, such as the New Development Bank. The Declaration proposes an improvement of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) via envisaging alternative eligible currencies. The document strongly supports WTO, but also calls for further liberalization of the intra-BRICS trade. Genarally speaking, in this area, BRICS is walking on two legs, one leg is to reform the existing international multilateral mechanisms, and the other leg is to add new mechanisms. The new mechanism is not to replace the existing international multilateral mechanism, but to enrich and improve the international mechanism and adapt it to the new situation and needs, especially the needs of developing countries.

In sum, the Declaration suggests that the BRICS group in its enlarged format is ready to start a new chapter in its history. It wants to build a fairer and more just international order, but not by “smashing the old world”, but through its own growth, through active participation and leadership to promote global development. Brics clearly represents the interests of the global South and developing countries, but is clearly not an anti-Western alliance and it does not seek to erode or to destroy Western institutions—the BRICS leaders were very careful in the exact working of the Kazan Declaration. BRICS does not even intend to ‘balance’ the West in one way or another. It will never become a match to G7, given the group’s diversity and the absence of a hegemonic leader. Yet, the group is not shy to claim a new, more visible role in global governance, as well as in defining parameters of the new world order. Moreover, it intends to turn itself into one of the most articulated voices of all the Global South, which so far remains grossly underrepresented within most multilateral international institutions.

The Kazan BRICS Declaration—is a sizeable document containing 134 points, some of which make quite long paragraphs. The last similar Declaration, approved at the previous BRICS Summit meeting in South Africa’s Johannesburg in August 2023, included only 94 generally more concise points. The earlier summit document, adopted in Beijing in July of 2022, included 75 points, and so on. The growing size of the final documents suggests a gradual increase of the intensity of the group’s interaction and a broadening of the scope of its multilateral cooperation. This is also due to the expansion of the BRICS countries. At the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was decided to accept five new members, namely Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Cartel, and the BRICS countries became 10 members. Its significance is not only the increase in quantity, but also the change in structure and characteristics. The BRICS has changed from a group of emerging economic powers to a group of large, medium and small countries, which has undergone structural changes, become more widely distributed in geography, become more culturally diverse, and most importantly, its representation has substantially improved, from a mere dialogue mechanism of emerging economic powers to a platform for the global South. Accordingly, its demands have become more extensive and diversified, and the need for cooperation has also expanded.

The Kazan Declaration consists of a preamble and four sections on: (1) strengthening multilateralism, (2) global and regional security, (3) financial and economic cooperation and (4) humanitarian exchanges.

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The Declaration outlines the shared group’s vision of the current state of international system, common or overlapping approaches to fundamental global problems and regional crises, as well as perceptions of the contours for the desirable and attainable world order as seen by the members of the group. Though there are no specific schedules or road maps in the Declaration, It does cover a number of key goals that the group should or could pursue within the next couple of years. It is clear that the document reflects a lot of thorough and persistent work done by experts and governmental officials at various levels meeting in multilateral formats over the last couple of months.

Security and development are the two major challenges facing all countries. Security and development are sometimes placed in a contradictory position, either with security first or development first. Reading through the text of the Declaration, it can be observed that it strikes a good balance between security and the development agenda. Security and development are interconnected, mutually conditional and indispensable. However, when it comes to the security and development agenda, development still comes first, as shown by the title of the Declaration. This does not mean that the importance of security is reduced, because security and development are inseparable, but it still reflects that development is the “hard truth” for developing countries.

Going through the text of the Declaration, one can observe that it contains a well-calibrated balance between the security and the development agendas. This balance suggests that the group decided to keep its mandate deliberately broad and it is not going to focus its future activities on something more specific—like, for instance, on promoting trade among members of the group. Instead, BRICS intends to position itself as an important global governance lab, where they can test new models of multilateral cooperation and innovative patterns of addressing critical problems of global economy, trade, finances, strategic stability, non-proliferation, reforming the United Nations system, fighting against terrorism, managing climate change, regulating trans-border migrations and so on. The political ‘investment portfolio’ of the group is quite diversified, which raises the chances of success in at least some of the ongoing BRICS initiatives.

On the development side, BRICS has faced a choice between trying to reform existing, mostly West-centered, institutions and aspiring to create efficient ‘BRICS signature’ alternatives to them. The Declaration suggests that the group intends to explore both opportunities: it calls for institutional changes within old multilateral bodies like IMF or IBRD, and at the same time declares its intention to go ahead with Non-Western institutional alternatives to these bodies, such as the New Development Bank. The Declaration proposes an improvement of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) via envisaging alternative eligible currencies. The document strongly supports WTO, but also calls for further liberalization of the intra-BRICS trade. Genarally speaking, in this area, BRICS is walking on two legs, one leg is to reform the existing international multilateral mechanisms, and the other leg is to add new mechanisms. The new mechanism is not to replace the existing international multilateral mechanism, but to enrich and improve the international mechanism and adapt it to the new situation and needs, especially the needs of developing countries.

The Declaration does not explicitly criticize trade or financial practices of any particular nation or a group of nations, but it expresses concerns about “unlawful unilateral coercive measures,” such as sanctions, which are seen as detrimental to the global economy and sustainable development goals. This is an important consensus because it shows an important political position in international politics today. The document concludes that such measures undermine the UN Charter and multilateral trading systems. This is hardly surprising—most of the BRICS member-states already are or might become objects of various unilateral sanctions.

The security dimension remains very sensitive for all the BRICS members since in some conflict situations they can easily find each other on the opposite sides of political barricades. Judging by the text of the Declaration, it appears that those who worked on the Declaration draft spent a lot of time and effort to find an appropriate language to describe many of the ongoing crises and conflicts. For instance, the paragraph on Ukraine is very short and it essentially refers to positions already expressed by members in their voting on Ukraine within the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. It also argues that the peace settlement should meet the UN principles and norms in their full integrity, takes a note of continuous mediation efforts and calls for a resolution of the conflict through diplomatic negotiations.

One could assume that it was not easy to reach a common denominator on the situation in Gaza, given very different positions on Israel taken by Iran and UAE. The statement on the need to respect the territorial integrity of Syria might look as a hidden criticism of the Turkish military presence in this country, which Damascus has not explicitly authorized. It was probably easier to agree on less controversial matters line the ongoing crisis of governance in Haiti, and therefore the Haiti section turned out to be relatively lengthy. The same applies to the point on international terrorism that looks quite detailed; this point apparently turned out to be relatively uncontroversial.

It can be observed that the declaration does not highlight the crisis in Ukraine, but pays great attention to the regional conflicts that are taking place around the world, which not only shows that the BRICS has a broader vision on global security issues, but also shows the sensitivity of the Ukrainian issue. It can also be seen that in addition to traditional security and non-traditional security (terrorism, drug trafficking, etc.), new security threats have received greater attention, rising to the same height as traditional security threats and non-traditional security threats, such as information security, network security, etc.

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The group decided to give some of the most practical or technically complicated matters additional thought and to continue exploring them in more detail. For instance, this refers to the proposal on “BRICS Clear”—a system designed to trade securities without the need for dollar conversions. One can imagine that many proposed changes to the global financial system using block-chain technology and digital tokens backed by national currencies that seeks to make dollar transactions in global trade obsolete are not easy to advance; therefore, they need further investigation. The same applies to proposals on the transportation and logistics infrastructure upgrading. On the other hand, something like BRICS-based grain exchange might be easier to put into operation, because the BRICS group already includes some of the major global exporters and importers of grain. It would be only natural to see BRICS more actively engaged into managing global energy markets—here again the group already includes most of the leading hydrocarbons producers and consumers in the world.

In sum, the Declaration suggests that the BRICS group in its enlarged format is ready to start a new chapter in its history. It wants to build a fairer and more just international order, but not by “smashing the old world”, but through its own growth, through active participation and leadership to promote global development. Brics clearly represents the interests of the global South and developing countries, but is clearly not an anti-Western alliance and it does not seek to erode or to destroy Western institutions—the BRICS leaders were very careful in the exact working of the Kazan Declaration. BRICS does not even intend to ‘balance’ the West in one way or another. It will never become a match to G7, given the group’s diversity and the absence of a hegemonic leader. Yet, the group is not shy to claim a new, more visible role in global governance, as well as in defining parameters of the new world order. Moreover, it intends to turn itself into one of the most articulated voices of all the Global South, which so far remains grossly underrepresented within most multilateral international institutions.

The odds are that the Kazan declaration will get a lot of attention in both political and academic communities worldwide and that it will receive a fair share of unfair criticism. Some would say that the Declaration turned out to be too general, too ambiguous and not properly focused on specific problems. Some would even be tempted to dismiss the document as immaterial. However, the Kazan Declaration signals that not only BRICS is alive and well, but that this is definitely a group to watch in future. The next, XVII BRICS summit will take place next year in Brazil and the journey to the country known as Pindorama (Land of the Palms) promises to be truly exciting.

First published in the Guancha.cn.