The Position of the BRICS Countries on the Multilateral Trade Governance System Under the World Trade Organization (WTO)

The joint declarations of the leaders of the BRICS countries (the "BRICS Leaders' Declarations") regarding the global multilateral trading system have over the years consistently reiterated several fundamental themes: the need to defend the multilateral trade regime, restore the two-tier dispute settlement system (DSS), and preserve the WTO's regime of special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) for developing countries. The 2021 Joint Statement of the BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations noted, in particular, the top-priority importance of immediately appointing members to the Geneva-based WTO Appellate Body (WTOAB). The 2024 Kazan Declaration (adopted at the 16th BRICS Summit) confirmed that BRICS is a proponent of strengthening and reforming the WTO.

However, despite the group's repeated statements of support for restoring and reforming the WTO's currently dysfunctional dispute settlement system (DSS), in practice, the actual trade policies of the BRICS countries paint a somewhat different picture, one in which considerable divergence can be seen in the positions of the association's member states. In her research, Kristen Hopewell (University of British Columbia) has established that since 2019, when the WTO Appellate Body fell into crisis and a state of institutional paralysis due to the lack of a quorum, there has been a manyfold increase in the number of cases of trade parties appealing the decisions of arbitration panels to the effectively defunct WTOAB with the ultimate goal of stymieing or blocking the execution of such arbitration rulings. China has resorted to this tactic on numerous occasions. Brazil, after a lengthy pause, joined the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) in 2023, thus moving beyond the consensus view adopted by the majority of BRICS countries. These discrepancies demonstrate how BRICS countries have been taking advantage of the WTO's institutional dysfunction in settling trade disputes as a tool not so much to defend common interests, but rather to protect their own national trade interests.

Negotiations over agricultural subsidies have also brought to light various contradictions in the positions of the BRICS countries. India has insisted on expanding the special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) trade rules with respect to ensuring food security, seeking to win the right to subsidize the creation of state food reserves without any limitations on such support on the part of the government. At the WTO's 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13), which was held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in early 2024, however, the consensus view on the WTO's agricultural agenda collapsed precisely because of India's stance. Brazil, as the world's largest exporter of agricultural products, has taken a diametrically opposed position: Brasília insists on the curtailment of what it sees as trade-distorting subsidies in all countries. Economists Till Schöfer (Hertie School, Berlin) and Clara Weinhardt (Maastricht University, Netherlands) have characterized this rupture in the consensus as significant and driven by fundamental differences in the positions of these two key players (India and Brazil) in the global agricultural value chain.

Meanwhile, attempts by several countries to expand the WTO agenda to encompass the regulation of e-commerce and investment interactions have also laid bare fundamental fissures in the positions of the BRICS countries. In 2023, India blocked the adoption of the WTO's Investment Facilitation for Development (WTOIFD) Agreement, with New Delhi perceiving the pact as a threat to its sovereign industrial policy. Conversely, China was one of the architects of the WTOIFD agreement. China's rapid economic growth has effectively disrupted the previous intragroup solidarity as Beijing's partners in BRICS have more and more come to believe that it is precisely the Chinese model of state-subsidized exports that lies at the root of asymmetric trade imbalances, which they have stood against within the WTO framework.

Overall, the position of the BRICS countries on the implementation of WTO rules and on the institutional reform of the WTO itself has been defined by shared policy commonalities on general issues and a divergence of interests on concrete, standalone areas of trade policy. The common unifying platform for all BRICS member states remains support for the defence of multilateralism and for the preservation of the special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) trade regime. But, specifically, in such areas as dispute settlement procedures, granting agricultural subsidies, and adopting new agreements within the WTO framework, the positions of individual BRICS member states are frequently far out of synch. The BRICS countries have already accrued enough influence and collective clout to block undesirable reforms within the multilateral trade system, but they still must take the next steps necessary for becoming a more unified and cohesive player in specific sectors, thus in turn enabling the group to promote its own proactive agenda in specific, high-priority areas of international trade.