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Sponsorship Behavior of the BRICS Grouping in the United Nations General Assembly

As the BRICS, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, continue to underscore the shift in international economic power, the grouping is collectively flexing its muscles at international forums. How have these four countries, spread across continents and confronting internal differences, been cooperating at the United Nations where numerous informal groupings have long been active?
In an article published in the journal Third World Quarterly, FREDERIEKE DIJKHUIZEN and MICHAL ONDERCO examine the patterns of co-sponsorship of the BRICS of resolutions adopted in the UN General Assembly (GA) plenary sessions. They find that the BRICS cooperate on fields such as economic issues, however, they do not form a coherent bloc when it comes to resolution sponsorship.
“Using the tool of social network analysis, hitherto unused in the study of the role of the BRICS on the global scene, we demonstrate that BRICS role in the UN GA remains very limited,” the authors state in their article titled ‘Sponsorship behavior of the BRICS in the United Nations General Assembly’.
“The BRICS fail to form one coherent bloc, which is for example illustrated by the fact that in all of the years analyzed in this study, the BRICS never sponsored a single resolution as a grouping (as the EU or Scandinavian countries usually do),” DIJKHUIZEN and ONDERCO write.
Additionally, in all of the themes evaluated, the BRICS are part of different communities in the UN GA, which proves that their co-sponsorship behavior is not strongly aligned, and they continue to co-sponsor resolutions with different countries as partners, the authors state. “There is evidence of ongoing cooperation, the statements from the summits, and undeniable attempts to cooperate more, yet barely any of this is reflected at the UN GA.”
In line with existing literature, the authors find no signs that the BRICS would use the UN GA as a platform for revolutionary change in international order. “[T]he BRICS do not seem to challenge the current world order within international institutions and international governmental organizations, at least not through the UN GA as its main deliberative body.”
Institutionalization of BRICS did not lead to heightened cooperation at the UN GA, the authors state, adding: “While there is a certain regrouping in terms of which communities BRICS belong to, they never become members of the same community.”

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Global Refugee Regime and UN System-wide Reforms

With the adoption of the Global Refugee Compact in 2018, attention has inevitably shifted toward its stated focus on responsibility sharing as well as the new tools required to make this happen.
In a new research paper, SARAH DEARDORFF MILLER considers how responsibility for ensuring refugee protection and access to solutions can be shared more reliably across the United Nations’ system, by examining entry points beyond traditional humanitarian actors (including peace and security actors in the United Nations), as well as the role states can play in supporting a broader response from the UN system.
The paper, titled ‘The Global Refugee Regime and UN System-wide Reforms’, published by the Center for International Governance Innovation and the World Refugee Council, draws upon a range of literature and concepts, including the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, offering a mapping and analysis of the proposed UN reforms within the humanitarian, development, financial, and peace and security sectors.
“There is no panacea for improving shortcomings in global responsibility sharing and cooperation on displacement within the UN system,” MILLER states. “The challenges relate to the scope, scale and predictability of responsibility sharing and are also highly contextual.”
This makes it a critical moment to consider the contours of responsibility sharing – what it really means and how it can be furthered, the author states. Likewise, the increased involvement of development actors, including the World Bank, demonstrates this momentum. “At the same time, populist, anti-refugee rhetoric is increasing, and strategic political thinking will be necessary to make progress if meaningful responsibility sharing and coordination within the UN system are to take place in the current context.”
The report considers how these reforms might be relevant to responsibility sharing in displacement situations and lays out some of the broader challenges to greater responsibility sharing.
The author provides recommendations for how to more fully engage these other actors – within the United Nations and beyond – to improve the prevention of, response to and resolution of displacement.

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Leadership and Cooperation to Strengthen Protection of Civilians

As protection of civilians (POC) has developed into a priority mandate of UN peace operations over the past 20 years, the UN Secretariat and UN field missions have produced guidance and tools to implement the POC mandates.
ANNA-LINN PERSSON proposes that leadership and cooperation could be important inter-linked denominators for balancing the potential tensions and strengthening protection of civilians.
In a policy brief titled ‘Leadership and Cooperation to Strengthen Protection of Civilians’, published by the Challenges Forum, she sets out to address the following questions:
- What are some of the challenges that UN peace operations could face in protecting civilians?
- What could assist UN peace operations in meeting these challenges?
- How could Member States and the UN Secretariat support peace operations in meeting these challenges?
PERSSON identifies challenges that UN peace operations could face in protecting civilians, grouped in three potential tensions: principles and pragmatism; national and local support; and armed and unarmed strategies.
The UN policy on protection of civilians, and its addendum, include aspects on leadership and cooperation, and missions often have coordination mechanisms for protection of civilians.
Member States and the UN Secretariat could support UN peace operations in the effective implementation by appointing senior mission leaders, or assigning them mentors, who are experienced in balancing the potential tensions in protection of civilians.
Another source of support could be the deployment of POC advisers and other key mission personnel for protection of civilians strategically and locally.
Furthermore, Member States and the UN Secretariat could organize in-mission trainings and table top exercises on context-specific protection of civilians:
- understanding the protection of civilians concept and mandate and the political and legal frameworks in the specific context;
- developing a mission-specific mission-wide strategy on protection of civilians, aligned with other key strategic mission documents;
- ensuring coherence between different mission components, and an integrated approach with the UN country team;
- developing and maintaining dialogue and engagement with all relevant actors, drivers for and against protection; and
- connecting support to the national level with local concerns and capacities, including women, men, girls and boys, of protection of civilians.

Gauging Chinese Public Support for China’s Role in International Peacekeeping

With a growing number of states disintegrating into civil war and anarchy in recent years, the international community has urged China to step up its efforts to provide much-needed support for peacekeeping through both financial and personnel contributions.
China has responded: it is currently the largest troop-contributing country among the permanent members of the Security Council, and the second-largest financial contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget. “This development is impressive, but the real test of China’s commitment will probably come in the future, when the Chinese public begins to feel the costs associated with these increasing contributions,” contend SONGYING FANG and FANGLU SUN.
So far, scant attention has been paid to the Chinese public’s preferences regarding peacekeeping, the authors write in ‘Gauging Chinese Public Support for China’s Role in Peacekeeping’, published in the Chinese Journal of International Affairs.
Much of the analysis within and outside of China about its expanding participation in UN peacekeeping has focused on Beijing’s decisions – especially its motivations for contributing more, and whether it will change its stance on non-interference. “We believe there is a real need to understand the Chinese public’s opinions on these matters.”
Beijing’s foreign policy decisions are not without constraints. The proliferation of online news sources and communication technologies has made shielding the public from information on sensitive foreign policy issues extremely challenging for any government, including Beijing. Meanwhile, the Chinese public has become more eager to express their opinions, facilitated by rising living standards as well as ever more convenient and rapid social media applications, such as Weibo and WeChat. “Therefore, understanding where the Chinese public stands on China’s role in providing peace for the wider world provides important insights into the policy options available to Beijing in response to such issues.”
The survey design allows the authors to gauge Chinese public support for peacekeeping in the context of a wide range of factors, including motivations to participate, types of participation, international organization authorization, and perceptions of the benefits to China. “Moreover, we are able to tease out to what extent sensitive issues, such as host state consent, which is associated with China’s long-held principle of non-interference in others’ domestic affairs, may influence public attitudes about China’s peacekeeping efforts.”
Many both intuitive and surprising findings emerged from the study, the authors contend. First, in all scenarios, respondents showed high levels of support for China’s engagement in peacekeeping activities. Secondly, contrary to the conventional wisdom, China’s various self-interests in the host country did not increase the already high level of support based solely on humanitarianism; however, respondents perceived indirect benefits to China’s international reputation from such activities that might have contributed to their strong support for China’s participation in peacekeeping. Thirdly, whether the UN or the AU authorized a peacekeeping operation made no difference to the level of support for China’s engagement in the mission; at the same time, we found no evidence that AU authorization was perceived as a substitute for the condition of host state consent. Finally, respondents generally preferred China to make personnel (military and police) contributions in addition to financial contributions.
“Although our sample is not representative of the general population,” the authors state, “it is representative of China’s large online population. The attributes of our respondents are consistent with the characteristics of Chinese netizens found in the annual Report on the Development of Internet Network in China recently released by the China Internet Network Information Center. The samples drawn in others’ online surveys or survey experiments conducted in China also found attributes similar to those in our sample.”
One could argue that the online population is the more politically attentive segment of Chinese society and is the likely source of domestic pressure on Beijing’s foreign policy. Beijing may well be keen to anticipate the online public’s reactions when rolling out significant foreign policy initiatives. Therefore, research on Chinese public opinion such as ours helps explain and predict Chinese foreign policy.
So, what are the main policy implications of the study? First, the results suggest that Beijing has a great deal of policy space when it comes to providing peacekeeping, because the Chinese public does not seem to attach immediate self-interest to their support for such missions. Secondly, the fact that the public tends to give even greater support to peacekeeping if China takes a leadership role should give Beijing strong incentive to seek such a role in the UN. Thirdly, the public is likely to view favorably Beijing’s deepening cooperation with the AU on peacekeeping. Finally, host state consent may continue to pose domestic constraints on Beijing’s peacekeeping decisions in the future.

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