BRIC Power!

India’s U.N. envoy points out that all four of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — will likely be on next year’s Security Council. Rather optimistically, he predicts that "BRIC coordination in the Security Council becomes a fact of life." Plenty of work on the Council is done through informal caucusing, in ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

India's U.N. envoy points out that all four of the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- will likely be on next year's Security Council. Rather optimistically, he predicts that "BRIC coordination in the Security Council becomes a fact of life." Plenty of work on the Council is done through informal caucusing, in groups including the permanent five, the Western P3, and the nonaligned movement. It's conceivable that the BRIC states could create a similar practice and become a significant independent force in Council negotiations. I'm skeptical that the quite weak BRIC sense of identity will trump the more traditional Council dynamics, but it bears watching.

India’s U.N. envoy points out that all four of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — will likely be on next year’s Security Council. Rather optimistically, he predicts that "BRIC coordination in the Security Council becomes a fact of life." Plenty of work on the Council is done through informal caucusing, in groups including the permanent five, the Western P3, and the nonaligned movement. It’s conceivable that the BRIC states could create a similar practice and become a significant independent force in Council negotiations. I’m skeptical that the quite weak BRIC sense of identity will trump the more traditional Council dynamics, but it bears watching.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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