Consensus found for BRICS New Delhi Leaders’ declaration
Sherpas (senior government negotiators) from the 11 BRICS member states negotiated the text of the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration for more than four days in the capital before reaching agreement in the early hours of the summit day.
The formal adoption of the declaration took place during the leaders' session of the 18th BRICS Summit on 12 September 2026.
A key sticking point during the run-up was language on West Asia: at the foreign ministers' meeting held in May 2026, negotiators had failed to reach consensus after Iran objected to draft paragraphs referencing a two-state solution; this had to be re-negotiated before the leaders' summit.
Reaching consensus among all 11 members — including states with sharply divergent interests such as Iran, Russia, and India's Western-aligned partners — was described as an important marker of India's diplomatic capacity as the 2026 BRICS chair.
The Sherpa System in Multilateral Summit Diplomacy
"Sherpas" are senior officials (typically from the foreign ministry or the head of government's office) appointed by each government to conduct the detailed, line-by-line negotiation of a summit's outcome document before leaders meet — named after the Sherpa guides who prepare the way for mountaineers. This system is used across G7, G20, and BRICS summits, and allows leaders to adopt a document in a single session because the substantive bargaining has already been resolved beforehand.
Key Details
- BRICS Sherpa-level talks in 2026 ran over four days, illustrating that most of the real negotiation in summit diplomacy happens well before leaders arrive, not during the summit itself.
- Sherpas typically report to a "Sous-Sherpa" support structure and coordinate with each country's foreign ministry; India's BRICS Sherpa for the 2026 summit is Sudhakar Dalela.
- Leaders' summits function as the formal ratification/announcement stage; the actual drafting and horse-trading of language occurs in preceding ministerial and Sherpa-track meetings (in this case, a Foreign Ministers' Meeting in May 2026 that failed to close the West Asia gap, followed by further Sherpa negotiation before September).
The reported four-plus days of Sherpa negotiation, and the earlier May 2026 foreign ministers' impasse over West Asia language, exemplify the multi-tiered, months-long process behind a single-day leaders' declaration.
Consensus as BRICS' Core Decision-Making Principle
BRICS operates without a founding treaty, a standing secretariat, or a voting mechanism — every declaration, unlike a UN resolution or WTO ruling, must be agreed to unanimously by all member states, giving each individual member an effective veto over any specific line of text. This structural feature explains why BRICS statements are frequently criticised as vague or lowest-common-denominator compared to binding legal instruments.
Key Details
- BRICS has 11 full members as of 2026 (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Indonesia) following the January 2024 expansion (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE) and Indonesia's accession in January 2025.
- Consensus decision-making contrasts with the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement mechanism (binding rulings) and with the UN Security Council (weighted voting with P5 veto) — BRICS instead resembles an informal "coalition of the willing" requiring universal buy-in on text.
- Difficult multilateral consensus documents commonly resolve disagreement either by omission (dropping the contested topic entirely, as happened with Ukraine in 2026) or by diluting specific language into vaguer formulations (as happened with the West Asia two-state solution paragraphs after Iran's objection).
The West Asia deadlock at the May 2026 foreign ministers' meeting — resolved only after further negotiation — is a textbook illustration of how a single member's objection (Iran, on two-state-solution language) can stall an entire consensus document until compromise wording is found.
India's Diplomatic Hosting Role as BRICS Chair 2026
Hosting and successfully steering a multilateral grouping to a consensus outcome document is treated internationally as a marker of a chair country's diplomatic capacity, distinct from simply hosting the physical summit. India held the 2026 BRICS chairship, following a similar convening role during its 2023 G20 presidency.
Key Details
- The BRICS chairship rotates annually among member states, traditionally following the alphabetical order of the founding acronym (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), now being adapted to accommodate the enlarged 11-member grouping; India previously hosted the 4th (2012, New Delhi), 8th (2016, Goa), and 13th (2021) BRICS summits as chair before taking the chair again for 2026.
- India's successful 2023 G20 New Delhi Leaders' Declaration, which secured consensus language on the Ukraine war acceptable to both Western and Russian positions, is the most-cited precedent for India's convening diplomacy.
- Achieving consensus among a more heterogeneous 11-member BRICS (post-2024 expansion) is considered a harder task than among the original five, since new members like Iran and Saudi Arabia bring additional, sometimes conflicting, regional priorities into the drafting process.
The successful adoption of the 2026 declaration despite the West Asia deadlock is being read as validation of India's ability to manage consensus-building across an enlarged and more diverse BRICS.
- Sherpa negotiations on the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration ran for more than four days before the 12 September 2026 adoption.
- The foreign ministers' meeting in May 2026 failed to reach consensus on West Asia language after Iranian objections to two-state-solution paragraphs.
- BRICS: 11 full members in 2026; expanded from the original 5 (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) via the January 2024 addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, plus Indonesia's January 2025 accession.
- India's BRICS Sherpa for 2026: Sudhakar Dalela.
- India previously chaired BRICS in 2012, 2016, and 2021 before its 2026 chairship.