BRICS — Home to World’s Worst Polluters and Repressors — Prioritizes ‘Misinformation’ and Climate Change in Declaration
Iranian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty
The China-led BRICS coalition published a declaration from its annual summit on Wednesday focused heavily on the alleged threat of “climate change,” condemnation of human rights sanctions on its rogue members states, and controlling “misinformation.”
BRICS is an anti-American coalition initially consisting of the countries that make up its name: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In January, the group added four more members: Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Argentina and Saudi Arabia were also invited to join, but Argentina declined the invitation, while Saudi Arabia has refused to formally confirm or reject the invitation. Reports prior to the beginning of the annual summit this week suggested that clarifying Saudi Arabia’s position in the bloc would be a priority, but at press time BRICS has offered no update on the Saudi situation.
In addition to member states, Russia, the summit’s host country this year, invited dozens of world leaders from BRICS-friendly governments. Russian officials claimed 33 countries sent high-level representatives, many including heads of state, to the summit, hosted by the Russian regional capital of Kazan. Reports throughout the week indicated that BRICS member countries are debating creating a second-tier of BRICS cooperation for “partner” countries that are not full members. One report suggested on Wednesday that BRICS would invite 13 countries – including Nigeria, Turkey, Cuba, and Belarus – to obtain “partner” status.
BRICS boasts some of the most malign geopolitical influences on the globe. China and India perennially appear on lists of the world’s worst polluters. China is conducting arguably the largest ongoing genocide on the planet against the indigenous Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz people of occupied East Turkistan. Ethiopia also stands accused of genocidal tactics to repress the ethnic Tigray population in that country. Iran is the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, responsible for funding a host of terrorist organizations in the Middle East and beyond including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthi movement, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the terrorists of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces. Brazil, under socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is leading an international censorship campaign against conservative and other right-wing voices under the guise of fighting “misinformation.” Russia, China, Iran, Egypt, and India all face credible accusations of religious persecution, either state-run or, in the case of India, led by violent Hindu radicals who the government does little to contain.
The objective of the BRICS coalition is to erode American and Western influence generally on the global stage. This year’s BRICS declaration targets nearly every aspect of the Western-led world order, including restructuring the United Nations, financial institutions, human rights standards, law enforcement and counterterrorism, and environmental standards.
The extensive declaration from the Kazan summit described the “three pillars” of the BRICS coalition as “political and security” cooperation, “economic and financial” work, and “cultural and people-to-people cooperation.” The most strident condemnations in the document were made against the concept of human rights and other economic sanctions, which have damaged host nation Russia’s ability to maintain its economy. Russia faces extensive Western sanctions in response to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“We are deeply concerned about the disruptive effect of unlawful unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions, on the world economy, international trade, and the achievement of the sustainable development goals,” the declaration stated.
The state parties also condemned “the attempts to subject development to discriminatory politically motivated practices,” meaning human rights sanctions and other measures to prevent repressive states from enriching themselves through global finance systems.
The document claimed that its signatories supported “promoting and protecting human rights,” but only “under the principles of equality and mutual respect,” and identified “the right to development” as a primary “right.” Global institutions such as the United Nations, the states declared, should address human rights in a “non-politicised and constructive manner and without double standards.”
The same documented declared “disinformation, misinformation, including propagating false narratives and fake news, as well as hate speech especially on digital platforms” as a primary concern.
“While reaffirming commitment to sovereignty of States we emphasize the importance of information integrity and ensuring free flow of and public access to accurate fact-based information,” the declaration claimed, “including the freedom of opinion and expression as well as digital and media literacy in order to allow for meaningful connectivity, in accordance with applicable national and international law.”
The declaration mentioned women’s rights in some form six times, despite the inclusion of Iran in the BRICS bloc, one of the world’s most repressive states for women. Egypt and India are also notoriously dangerous sites for women, with minimal law enforcement safeguards against rape, violence, and other forms of abuse.
Just as the declaration claims support for human rights while condemning enforcement mechanisms to secure human rights, the BRICS countries claimed to take the alleged climate crisis seriously while condemning mechanisms to encourage state parties to mitigate carbon emissions and other pollution.
“We reject unilateral, punitive and discriminatory protectionist measures, that are not in line with international law, under the pretext of environmental concerns,” the document read, “such as unilateral and discriminatory carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), due diligence requirements, taxes and other measures.”
“We condemn unilateral measures introduced under the pretext of climate and environmental concerns and reiterate our commitment to enhancing coordination on these issues,” the document continued. “We are deeply concerned with attempts to link security with the climate change agenda.”
The document also explicitly promotes the concept of “special and differential treatment (S&DT) for developing countries,” meaning countries identified as “developing” – which currently including the world’s second-largest economy, China – receive financial windfalls and are not beholden to the same environmental, human rights, financial propriety, and other standards as “developed” nations.
Again, on the issue of terrorism, the BRICS members claimed “unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms” – while stating they “reject any attempts at politicization of counter-terrorism issues and the use of terrorist groups to achieve political ends.” BRICS did not, as expected, condemn Iran for its outsized role in funding and supporting international terrorism.
The BRICS statement did address the fact that one of Iran’s proxies, the Yemeni Houthis, are waging a terrorist campaign against global commerce, but did not mention the Houthis or condemn the parties involved.
“We stress the importance of ensuring the exercise of navigational rights and freedoms of vessels of all states in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab Strait, in accordance with international law” the document read. “We encourage enhanced diplomatic efforts by all parties to that end, including by addressing the causes of the conflict, and continued support for dialogue and Yemen’s peace process under UN auspices.”
The declaration did condemn Israel for its self-defense measures against the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, demanding an immediate “ceasefire” in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which would enable the terrorists to reconstruct their operation.
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