Through its principled diplomacy, technological innovation, and developmental vision, India continues to shape the BRICS agenda in a manner that promotes equity, justice, and shared prosperity.

The BRICS Summit, an annual gathering of five major emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has become an influential forum in global geopolitics and economic discourse. Since its inception in 2009, BRICS has evolved into a platform that not only promotes economic cooperation among its members but also seeks to provide alternative narratives to Western-dominated institutions. At the heart of this transformation lies India, whose proactive diplomacy, economic growth, and commitment to multilateralism have made it a key player within the bloc.

India’s participation in BRICS reflects its broader vision for a multipolar world—one where emerging nations have a decisive say in shaping global affairs. As one of the founding members, India has been instrumental in driving critical initiatives and ensuring that the voice of the Global South finds space in international decision-making processes. At every summit, India brings to the table its concerns about the global economic order, its desire for institutional reform, and its emphasis on inclusive development.

A major focus of India’s engagement in BRICS has been the reform of multilateral institutions like the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. India has consistently argued that these institutions are relics of a post-World War II power structure and fail to reflect the contemporary economic and political realities. The country advocates for a more democratic and representative system that includes the voices of developing nations, especially in matters of global governance.

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Another key aspect of India’s role in BRICS is its consistent effort to build consensus on counterterrorism. Given the challenges India faces from cross-border terrorism, it has repeatedly urged the BRICS partners to adopt a united stand against all forms of terrorism without political bias or double standards. India’s push led to the establishment of the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Working Group, an important step in institutionalizing anti-terror cooperation within the bloc.

In the realm of technology and innovation, India has emerged as a global leader, particularly in digital public infrastructure and fintech. Leveraging its experience with Aadhaar, UPI, and other homegrown platforms, India has called for collaboration among BRICS countries in the field of digital inclusion and e-governance. Its presidency of BRICS in 2021 saw the launch of the BRICS Digital Health Platform and the BRICS Innovation Network, both of which aim to harness the collective strength of member countries in science and technology.

India also places strong emphasis on sustainable development and climate change. While recognizing the need for urgent action, India has stressed the importance of equity, climate justice, and differentiated responsibilities. It has used the BRICS platform to call for enhanced climate finance and technology transfer to developing countries. India’s initiatives like the International Solar Alliance and LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) resonate with the bloc’s broader objectives of building resilient and sustainable economies.

Health cooperation, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also emerged as a critical area of collaboration within BRICS. India’s vast pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and its outreach through initiatives like Vaccine Maitri positioned it as a responsible and capable partner during the global health crisis. The BRICS Health Ministers’ meetings have increasingly focused on vaccine research, public health infrastructure, and knowledge sharing, often drawing from India’s expertise.

Recent BRICS summits have further underscored India’s mature and strategic diplomacy. At the 2023 Johannesburg Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the need for resilient supply chains, cooperation in green technology, and the expansion of BRICS membership. The idea of BRICS+, which envisions including more countries from the Global South, was met with growing interest. India supported a calibrated expansion approach, one that maintains the group’s cohesion and consensus-based model while broadening its representation.

India’s balancing act within BRICS is particularly noteworthy given its complex relationships with China and Russia. Despite periodic tensions with China, including recent border disputes, India has maintained its commitment to BRICS as a multilateral platform. It continues to engage diplomatically, focusing on areas of convergence while managing bilateral differences. Similarly, India’s deepening engagement with Russia, especially in energy and defense sectors, is reflected in its constructive role within the BRICS framework—even as it maintains strategic autonomy in the face of Western pressure regarding Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The financial dimension of BRICS also aligns with India’s interests. The New Development Bank (NDB), originally known as the BRICS Bank, was strongly backed by India and has supported infrastructure projects across member nations. India sees in it a viable alternative to Western financial institutions and a step toward financial sovereignty. Discussions around a BRICS currency or payment system to reduce dependency on the dollar have also been supported in principle by India, though it continues to emphasize feasibility and economic prudence.

Looking ahead, India envisions a BRICS that is inclusive, responsive, and transformative. Its advocacy for digital transformation, sustainable development, and South-South cooperation demonstrates a commitment to collective progress. As BRICS expands and adapts to new geopolitical challenges, India’s leadership will be crucial in steering the bloc toward constructive outcomes.

The BRICS Summit has become an essential arena for addressing global challenges, and India’s role within it has only grown stronger with time. Through its principled diplomacy, technological innovation, and developmental vision, India continues to shape the BRICS agenda in a manner that promotes equity, justice, and shared prosperity. In a rapidly changing world order, BRICS offers India not just a platform but a purpose—to build bridges across continents and create a future that is democratic, multipolar, and inclusive.

Author Syed Jahanzeeb is a geopolitical analyst and columnist who writes on international relations, strategic affairs, and South-South cooperation. With a keen interest in emerging global alliances and India’s foreign policy, he regularly contributes to newspapers and journals. He can be reached on syedjahanzeeb2@gmail.com.

Unseen toll of conflicts on sexual and reproductive health and rights

Women bear a disproportionate and often overlooked burden of war. In today’s conflict zones, women are not only deliberately targeted through gender based violence but also suffer intensely from the collapse of vital systems that support their health and wellbeing. The consequences for their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are catastrophic yet routinely sidelined in humanitarian responses. The complexities of different types of conflicts demand nuanced attention to the layered ways in which war devastates women’s bodies, autonomy, and futures.

The most visible manifestations of conflict on SRHR include, for instance, maternal deaths, attacks on health facilities, and the deliberate use of sexual violence as tactics of war. In Gaza over 55 000 pregnant women face urgent need for maternal healthcare, hundreds give birth each day in shelters or unsafe conditions, and neonatal and maternal deaths are climbing.1 With severe shortages of food and starvation affecting one in five people, each missed meal increases the risks of miscarriages, stillbirths, and undernourished newborns.2

Attacks on health facilities are on the rise in conflicts. Women’s access to health services is particularly affected by these attacks. For example, in the Darfur region of Sudan, the destruction of health and road infrastructure and the lack of skilled birth attendants has resulted in limited availability of basic obstetric care.3

The risks of gender based violence, including sexual violence, are known to increase in conflict settings. An analysis of studies from Africa indicates that 48% of women affected by conflict have experienced sexual violence.4 There are also more insidious forms of collateral damage to SRHR in conflicts. Warring parties have pressured women to marry their soldiers, become pregnant, or have abortions. For instance, in Myanmar, military organisations encouraged women to reproduce to dilute opposition ethnic communities.5 The risks of child marriage are found to be higher in fragile and conflict settings (prevalence is twice the global average) as families pressure girls to marry to protect them from insecure environments.6 Intimate partner violence is widely reported to increase in conflict affected settings, exacerbated by the stress of economic hardship and physical insecurity.7

Open this photo in gallery: The Trump administration has sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, four of its judges, and a UN independent expert tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.BASHAR TALEB/AFP/Getty Images

Alex Neve is a professor of international human-rights law at the University of Ottawa. Amanda Ghahremani is an international human-rights lawyer and a research fellow at the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was elected on a promise to stand up to Donald Trump’s bullying, supposedly heralding a new era in U.S.-Canada relations.

Yet Mr. Carney’s first months in office have revealed a sharp turn toward Mr. Trump and U.S. interests, including on border control and military spending. Now, it seems Canada has capitulated to yet another U.S. obsession: attacks on the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Canada has remained silent in the face of a recent round of withering U.S. attacks on the ICC for charging two senior Israeli leaders with oversight of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Mr. Trump’s vitriol against the ICC has led to sanctions against the court’s chief prosecutor and four of its judges, as well as a UN independent expert who has supported the court’s investigation of Israel. Other ICC personnel could be sanctioned at any time.

At a UN Human Rights Council session in June, 50 states released a joint statement in which they “firmly reject[ed] these regrettable attempts to undermine the judicial independence of the court and the integrity of the Rome Statute system.” At another UN meeting in July, 48 states jointly reiterated that “the court, its officials and staff must be able to carry out their mandate and professional duties without intimidation, coercion or duress.” Many of our closest allies endorsed these statements. Canada did not.

Is Canada’s silence a sign that we are moving to the sidelines of international justice? Mr. Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand have said nothing to explain this about-face in our foreign policy toward an institution that we helped to establish.

Opinion: Canada needs to follow through on its promise to help Palestinians

Indeed, one of Canada’s proudest moments on the world stage was its leadership during the 1998 global conference to adopt the Rome Statute and establish the ICC. Canada was the 14th country to sign the treaty and one of the first countries to pass domestic legislation to implement it. Canadian Philippe Kirsch was the court’s first president. Canadian Kimberly Prost is currently an ICC judge and could be at risk of being sanctioned for her work. How dismal, therefore, to see Canada’s leadership squandered in recent weeks because of what appears to be a fixation on appeasing Mr. Trump.

While the Rome Statute was a historic breakthrough, delivering international justice was bound to be complicated. There are significant practical challenges in carrying out investigations amidst armed conflict and mass atrocities. There are daunting political challenges with many countries not only refusing to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction but aggressively objecting to cases the court has properly initiated.

The U.S. is no fan of the court and has relentlessly lashed out at any prospect of U.S. or Israeli officials being charged for their involvement in international crimes. Although the U.S. and Israel are not members of the ICC, the State of Palestine is a recognized member and crimes committed on its territory or by its nationals fall within the jurisdiction of the court. This means that the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel and the ongoing bombardment of Gaza – which legal and human-rights experts argue amounts to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity – can all be investigated.

And the ICC did investigate. In November, 2024, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The prosecutor had also sought three warrants for Hamas leaders but abandoned them when they were killed by Israeli forces.

Prior to Mr. Carney’s election, Canada publicly joined other states in June, 2024, and February, 2025, in expressing “continued and unwavering support for the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC.” What has changed since then is our country’s leadership, and the fact that sanctions have now actually been imposed.

Whether Canada’s silence is a roundabout way of showing displeasure with the arrest warrants lawfully issued against Israeli leaders, or a timid unwillingness to say anything indirectly critical of the Trump administration (or both), it represents an unprincipled and craven abandonment of the imperative to strengthen the rule of law in our turbulent, violent world.

At a time when civilian protection is desperately under threat, not only in Gaza, but in Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and many other corners of the world, Canada cannot afford to be equivocal and selective about something as essential as international accountability and justice.

What is most objectionable is that this shift in Canadian policy was carried out by stealth, with no public notification or explanation, at a time when Canadians crave principled and ethical leadership on the international stage. We need better. And the world certainly deserves better.

Published June 5, 2025

By Joie Chowdhury, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, Aditi Shetye, Global Strategic Litigation Lead at the World’s Youth for Climate Justice and Researcher in Public International & Environmental Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law; and Theresa Amor-Juergenssen, Legal Research and Capacity-Building Lead at World’s Youth for Climate Justice.

As the 2025 UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) convenes from June 9 to 13 in Nice, France, political leaders and decision makers face a pivotal moment. The ocean, our planet’s life support system, is under siege from the escalating impacts of climate change, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss. These changes are devastating marine ecosystems, and also the livelihoods and cultures of coastal and island communities worldwide. For low-lying States, sea level rise is not a distant worry, it is an existential crisis threatening their sovereignty, and the right to self-determination.

The cause is clear: fossil fuels generate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, driving climate change and its resultant harms. To safeguard our ocean, and in line with international legal obligations, States must commit to a fair, fast, full, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels. A fossil fuel-free future is no longer optional— it is essential for the continued health of our ocean and the stability of life on earth.

The Moral and Legal Imperative for a Fossil-Free Ocean

At the International Court of Justice (ICJ) climate advisory opinion oral hearings in The Hague last December, counsel for Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group delivered a profound reminder of what is at stake in the climate crisis, reflections echoed in the oral arguments of many island and coastal States:

“Vanuatu is a nation of islands and island peoples. Our peoples have built vibrant cultures and traditions over millennia that are intimately intertwined with our ancestral lands and seas. Yet today, we find ourselves on the frontlines of a crisis we did not create ⎯ a crisis that threatens our very existence…Rising sea levels are projected to submerge the entire territory of certain small island States ⎯ possibly within decades. This would inhibit the sovereignty of these States and, thus, the right of affected peoples to fully enjoy their self-determined political status. It would also force the dispersal of peoples from their ancestral homelands, undermining their right to exist as integral peoples within their own territory…For the peoples of Melanesia, whose very existence as peoples is fused with their ancestral territories, this would be tantamount to collective death.”

For nations whose identities and futures are inextricably tied to the ocean, the threat of erasure due to sea level rise and other fossil-fueled climate impacts is not a distant prospect; it is an unfolding reality. In the face of what is fundamentally a fight for survival, a business-as-usual approach is not only inadequate, it is unconscionable. Yet, across global fora major polluters continue to prioritize narrow self-interest, doing their utmost to avoid and dilute their legal duties, as States face the threat of disappearing altogether. This cycle of harm and impunity must end. A fossil-free ocean is not a lofty aspiration; it is an urgent moral and legal imperative. Recent legal developments have clarified that States already have binding obligations under existing law to address climate change and protect the ocean. These obligations must now be met with the seriousness and solidarity this moment demands.

The Relevance of the Climate Advisory Opinions

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) Climate Advisory Opinion (2024): The UNOC Political Declaration recalls the 2024 Advisory Opinion of ITLOS on the Request for an Advisory Opinion submitted by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS). Advisory opinions are authoritative clarifications of law by a court. The pronouncements of ITLOS in its climate advisory opinion ground ocean health in legal duties. ITLOS has affirmed that anthropogenic GHG emissions constitute “pollution of the marine environment” and that States are obligated to take all necessary measures to prevent, reduce, and control such pollution, guided by the best available science and a stringent and objective standard of due diligence. While the opinion limits itself to clarifying State obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the science is unequivocal: without directly confronting fossil fuel production and use, such reductions will remain out of reach.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Climate Advisory Opinion (Expected 2025): The ICJ is poised to clarify States’ obligations under international law to address climate change and the legal consequences of failing to meet these obligations. The ICJ advisory opinion is one to watch for ocean-relevant legal findings, as several States uplifted the impacts of climate change on ocean and coastal communities in their arguments and emphasized four ocean-relevant arguments in particular, encompassing also arguments for a fossil fuel phase out:

Legal obligations on climate change stem not only from climate-specific treaties but also from other sources of law, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, human rights treaties, and customary international law.

The interlocking principles—territorial integrity, self-determination, and permanent sovereignty over natural resources—must continue to apply even in the face of sea level rise.

Under their preventive obligations, including the duty of due diligence and the precautionary principle, States must take measures to protect the environment, including the ocean and the marine environment, from greenhouse gas emissions

States, Peoples, and individuals whose rights have been violated are entitled to specific remedies for climate-related harm, such as compensation, technological support, the preservation of sovereignty despite territorial loss, protection for climate-displaced persons, and the restoration of vital ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) Advisory Opinion (Expected 2025): Building on its 2017 advisory opinion on the environment and human rights and its 2024 Case of La Oroya Population v. Peru, as well as the arguments presented to it in the course of the climate advisory opinion proceedings in 2024, the IACtHR is expected to elaborate on States’ rights-based climate obligations in relation to climate change and the environment, including the ocean and the marine environment.

To meet legal obligations and protect our ocean, States must halt oil and gas expansion and ensure a rapid and equitable fossil fuel phase out – an obligation that cannot be further delayed without putting our planet in peril and the rights of both present and future generations. The health of our ocean is critical for our global survival.

The Path Forward

As Astrid Puentes, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to a Healthy Environment, has emphasized in her 2025 Report on the Ocean and Human Rights, “[I]mmediate action is essential to phase out fossil fuel reliance, protect vulnerable habitats and align ocean activities with sustainable climate and biodiversity targets.”

UNOC 2025 presents an opportunity for the ocean governance community to reaffirm its commitment to ocean protection and climate justice. By embracing a fossil-free future, States can comply with their legal obligations, stand with climate-vulnerable communities, and preserve the health of our ocean for generations to come. The law is clear: States have binding obligations to prevent climate harm and protect the ocean. The science is clearer still. This is no longer a question of policy preference. It is a matter of equity, of justice, of dignity, of survival; however, what remains in question is the political will to act accordingly.

Note: This blog post is based on the joint Key Messages Briefing Note for the UN Ocean Conference, co-produced by the Center for International Environmental Law, Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, and the World’s Youth for Climate Justice.