18th BRICS Summit Concludes at Bharat Mandapam With Unanimous Adoption of the New Delhi Declaration

🗞️ Why in News The 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, under India’s Chairship, concluded on 13 September 2026 after the unanimous adoption of the New Delhi Declaration on 12 September 2026. The declaration, of approximately 140 paragraphs and titled “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, condemned the Pahalgam terror attack of April 2025 in Jammu and Kashmir, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution, backed comprehensive UN Security Council reform with greater roles for India and Brazil, and opposed unilateral trade tariffs, secondary economic sanctions and WTO-incompatible carbon border adjustment measures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption in the plenary session and separately warned, in his Day Two intervention, against the weaponisation of critical minerals and supply chains.

The Declaration in One Table

The Terrorism Paragraph and Pahalgam

The most quoted paragraph of the declaration in the Indian press is its explicit condemnation of the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians were killed in the Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam by militants linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy front. This is the second consecutive BRICS leaders’ declaration to condemn the Pahalgam attack, after the Rio de Janeiro Declaration of July 2025, and the condemnation is again carried in a text negotiated with China, Iran and the Gulf states.

The declaration reiterates zero tolerance for terrorism, calls for a comprehensive convention on international terrorism, and condemns the misuse of cross-border safe havens, financing networks and information operations. It expresses concern at attempts to link terrorism to any religion, nationality or civilisation.

For India, whose 2016 hosting at Goa produced a summit declaration in which the reference to cross-border terrorism was constrained by the room, the Pahalgam paragraph is the concrete counter-terror deliverable of the 2026 Chairship. It also anchors the Indian position in a plurilateral document that is quotable in bilateral engagements with third states.

Middle East, Gaza, and the West Asia Escalation

On the Middle East, the declaration calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and reiterates support for a two-state solution with the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as a viable, contiguous Palestinian state living alongside Israel in security. It expresses deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in West Asia, calls on all parties to exercise restraint, and voices serious concern over attacks on IAEA-safeguarded nuclear facilities, without naming any country.

The declaration also condemns attacks on civilian infrastructure, humanitarian workers and hospitals and calls for unhindered humanitarian access in Gaza. It reaffirms the primacy of the United Nations as the framework for the resolution of the Palestinian question.

UN Reform: The Big Ask

The declaration is direct on the reform of the United Nations, and in particular of the Security Council, to make it “more democratic, representative, effective and efficient”, and to increase representation of developing countries. China and Russia, both permanent members of the Council, are recorded in the declaration as supporting a greater role for India and Brazil in the UN, including the Security Council. The formulation reiterates language carried in the Johannesburg (2023), Kazan (2024) and Rio de Janeiro (2025) declarations; it is a continuity, not a new concession.

The declaration also calls for reform of the International Monetary Fund, including a quota realignment that reflects the current economic weights of emerging economies, and for the reinstatement of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, whose paralysis since December 2019 has hollowed the WTO’s dispute settlement architecture.

Trade, Tariffs and Carbon Borders

The declaration takes an unusually direct line on unilateral trade measures. It opposes unilateral tariffs, secondary economic sanctions and protectionist carbon border adjustment measures that are non-compliant with WTO rules. The last is understood to reference the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), whose transitional phase, as background, ran from 1 October 2023 and whose definitive phase applies since 2026 (from 1 January).

The declaration commits to expanding local-currency settlement in trade and finance, without framing this as a de-dollarisation project. It commits to strengthening the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, to expanding the New Development Bank’s local-currency lending and to co-financing with existing multilateral development banks.

Institutional Deliverables Recorded

The declaration records several institutional deliverables that carry the summit’s most concrete commitments:

New Development Bank. Expansion of local-currency lending and co-financing with the World Bank, AIIB and regional MDBs; enlargement of the membership base to more Global South economies.

BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement. Reaffirmation of the USD 100 billion currency-swap facility, and commitments to modernise its operational readiness in the face of shifting balance-of-payments risks in emerging markets.

BRICS Payments Work. Support for interoperability of national fast-payment systems, cross-border UPI-style linkages, and technical work on CBDC settlement. The declaration is careful not to elevate any single technical stack to a “BRICS” branding.

India-led outcomes. Reporting on the summit outcomes lists a BRICS Risk Lab at GIFT City, work on artificial intelligence governance, and an International Big Cats Alliance among the deliverables associated with India’s Chairship.

Day Two: The Open Session on Inclusive Global Growth

The Day Two open session at Bharat Mandapam on 13 September 2026 was structured around “Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability: Shaping the Future for Inclusive Global Growth” and brought together the eleven BRICS members with Partner Countries and outreach invitees. Prime Minister Modi’s Day Two intervention warned against the weaponisation of critical minerals and supply chains, described in the Indian press as a veiled reference to China’s export-licensing practices in rare earths and processed critical minerals, without naming any country. India has since 2023 identified a list of 30 critical minerals through the Ministry of Mines and, in 2025, operationalised a National Critical Mineral Mission with a corpus of Rs 34,300 crore over seven years.

What the Declaration Does Not Say

The declaration does not name the United States in its criticism of unilateral tariffs, though the reference is unmistakable. It does not commit BRICS to a common currency; the payments and reserve architecture is framed as settlement diversification, not currency substitution. It does not endorse any single cross-border payment platform as “the BRICS platform”; the technical work is national-fast-payment interoperability, not a rebranding of mBridge or Project Nexus, the latter being a BIS initiative in which India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand participate with Indonesia as special observer.

UPSC Relevance

GS Paper 2. International groupings involving India and affecting India’s interests; reform of the multilateral architecture; India’s role in the Global South.

GS Paper 3. External sector, international trade rules, WTO dispute settlement, currency and settlement architecture, MDB finance and climate finance.

The Mains framing. The New Delhi Declaration is a specific-language, low-provocation document. It records what eleven diverse states will jointly sign at this moment: an explicit condemnation of Pahalgam, a ceasefire call in Gaza, an anti-tariff stance and support for UN and IMF reform. Its worth is measured less by rhetorical breadth than by the density of quotable, quotable-in-bilaterals paragraphs. The critical-minerals framing in the Prime Minister’s intervention is a veiled reference to China’s export-licensing practices in rare earths, which does not appear in the declaration proper because a member cannot be named there.

A question worth preparing. “The New Delhi Declaration of the 18th BRICS Summit condemns cross-border terrorism, calls for Security Council reform, opposes unilateral tariffs and warns against weaponising supply chains. Discuss its significance for India’s foreign policy, and evaluate the limits of a consensus-based grouping. (250 words)”

📌 Facts Corner, Knowledgepedia

Prelims, statement-ready facts:

• The New Delhi Declaration was adopted unanimously on 12 September 2026, at the close of Day One of the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
• It is approximately 140 paragraphs long and is titled “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
• It expressly condemned the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians were killed.
• On the Middle East, it called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution.
• It backed comprehensive UN Security Council reform, with greater roles for India and Brazil; China and Russia are recorded as supporting that ambition.
• It opposed unilateral tariffs, secondary sanctions and WTO-incompatible carbon border adjustment measures.
• It called for the reinstatement of the WTO Appellate Body and an IMF quota realignment.
• It supported strengthening the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (USD 100 billion, 2014).
• The Prime Minister’s Day Two intervention warned against weaponising critical minerals and supply chains.
• BRICS operates by consensus, not by majority vote; eleven members in 2026.

Prelims, the traps:

• The Pahalgam attack referenced was on 22 April 2025, not in 2026; the site was the Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam.
• The Pahalgam condemnation is not a BRICS first: the Rio de Janeiro Declaration (2025) had already condemned it.
• The CBAM transitional phase began in October 2023; the definitive phase applies since 1 January 2026.
• The WTO Appellate Body has been effectively paralysed since December 2019 when the US-led block on appointments left it below quorum.
• Saudi Arabia is listed as a member by India’s 2026 Chairship but has not publicly confirmed formal accession; it is not a Partner Country.
• Project Nexus is a BIS-designed payments platform, not a BRICS initiative; the BRICS payments track is separate.

Mains, arguments and keywords:

• BRICS as reform-of-multilateralism vehicle: UNSC composition, IMF quotas, WTO Appellate Body, MDB co-financing.
• Terrorism as plurilateral counter-terror language: the Pahalgam condemnation carried forward from Rio 2025.
• Local-currency settlement, not de-dollarisation: BRICS Pay, cross-border UPI linkages, CRA modernisation.
• Critical-minerals weaponisation and India’s National Critical Mineral Mission (2025, Rs 34,300 crore, seven years).
• CBAM and the developing-country trade-and-climate interface.
• Keywords: New Delhi Declaration, UNSC reform, WTO Appellate Body, CBAM, NDB, CRA, BRICS Risk Lab, critical minerals.

Interview, be ready for:

• “How consequential is the Pahalgam paragraph?” It is the second year running that an eleven-state grouping including China and Iran has condemned the attack in a summit declaration, which turns a one-off into a settled position. The paragraph is quotable in bilateral engagements with third states, and is a diplomatic reference point beyond the news cycle.
• “Is BRICS a de-dollarisation project?” No. The declaration frames the payments work as settlement diversification and interoperability of national fast-payment systems. Cost, speed and PvP settlement are the objectives, not currency substitution.
• “What is the significance of the critical-minerals framing?” It lets India express a concern that most of BRICS shares, without naming China in a room in which China sits. It also anchors the intellectual case for the National Critical Mineral Mission and for diversified supply chains through partners such as Australia, Chile and the Gulf.

Sources: PMIndia, PIB, MEA, NDB, GKToday

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