Brics enlargement in hope of getting heard

At the end of their meeting at Johannesburg, South Africa, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, collectively known as the Brics countries, decided to admit six more members into the grouping. They also came up with a declaration mainly outlining the areas of cooperation and how they can go about it.

On international trade, the leaders reaffirmed their support for an open, transparent, fair, predictable, inclusive, equitable, non-discriminatory and rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core, with special and differential treatment for developing countries, including least developed countries (LDCs). They stressed their support to work towards positive and meaningful outcomes on the issues at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO. The countries committed to engage constructively to pursue the necessary WTO reform with a view to presenting concrete deliverables to MC13. They called for the restoration of a well-functioning two-tier binding WTO dispute settlement system accessible to all members by 2024, and the selection of new appellate body members without further delay.
 

On agriculture, the Brics leaders called for progress towards the achievement of a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system, ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, promoting sustainable agriculture and food systems, and implementing resilient agricultural practices. They emphasised the need to deliver on agriculture reform in accordance with the mandate in Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture at the WTO while recognising the importance of respecting the mandates with regards to a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security purposes and special safeguard mechanism for developing countries, including LDCs, in their respective negotiating contexts. They also expressed concern over trade-restrictive measures, which are inconsistent with the WTO rules, including unilateral illegal measures such as sanctions that affect agricultural trade.
 

The Brics leaders opposed trade barriers, including those under the pretext of tackling climate change, imposed by certain developed countries and reiterated their commitment to enhancing coordination on these issues. They underlined that measures taken to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss must be WTO-consistent, and must not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade, and should not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade. Any such measure must be guided by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different national circumstances, they said; and expressed concern at any WTO inconsistent discriminatory measure that will distort international trade, risk new trade barriers, and shift burden of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss to Brics members and developing countries.
 

Most of these and many other statements on global issues in the final declaration are similar to the statements made at earlier Brics meetings. The developed countries are not taking these statements seriously and perhaps, that is the main reason why the Brics leaders decided to admit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina into the grouping. More countries will be brought into the grouping, said Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa.  The idea seems to be to have a large enough grouping that will make bigger noises in the hope that the richer countries, led by the United States in a predominantly western alliance, will listen to them. 

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