BRICS Delhi Declaration: 7 Commitments That Could Actually Change Indian Law or Regulation

The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit has put artificial intelligence, cross-border payments, cybercrime, virtual assets, competition, customs and social security on a common regulatory agenda for the grouping, areas that could have a bearing on how India frames or updates its own laws and regulations.

The 140-paragraph Declaration, adopted by BRICS leaders at the September 12-13 summit, makes clear that its commitments are to be implemented in accordance with the national laws, regulations and priorities of member states. From an Indian regulatory perspective, however, seven commitments stand out for their potential to influence existing laws, inform future rule-making and deepen cooperation between Indian regulators and their BRICS counterparts.

Here are seven areas with the future regulatory implications.

1. AI Training And Copyright: From Infringement To Licensing

BRICS commitment: Para 120

The Declaration calls for respect for intellectual property rights in the digital environment, specifically including their use for artificial intelligence training, and refers to fair remuneration of right holders.

For India, this goes directly into an unsettled area of copyright law. The existing Copyright Act, 1957 was framed around conventional forms of copying and infringement, not the use of millions of copyrighted works as training material for generative AI models. The question of whether the existing exceptions can accommodate such use is already before the Delhi High Court in ANI Media Pvt Ltd v OpenAI.

The BRICS commitment could therefore push India beyond the traditional question of whether copying constitutes infringement. The emerging legal question becomes whether AI training should operate through a statutory licensing and remuneration system.

That would represent a significant redesign of copyright law.

2. Cross-Border Payments: From Indian Payment Regulation To Interoperable Payment Systems

BRICS commitment: Para 90

The Declaration supports work on interoperability between payment and messaging channels, faster and cheaper cross-border payments, and greater use of BRICS local currencies for trade and investment.

India already regulates cross-border payment aggregators and has been working to link UPI with foreign fast-payment systems. RBI has also joined Project Nexus, which seeks to interlink domestic fast-payment systems multilaterally.

But a BRICS-wide payment architecture raises questions that domestic payment law does not answer neatly: which regulator has jurisdiction over a transaction, how customer data can move between jurisdictions, how fraud liability is allocated, how AML and KYC requirements are reconciled, and how settlement is legally recognised across countries.

The implication for India is a shift from regulating cross-border transactions entering or leaving India to regulating interoperable payment infrastructure connecting multiple sovereign systems.

That could require a new layer of RBI, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and payment-system rules.

3. Cybercrime: From Domestic Offences To Cross-Border Evidence

BRICS commitment: Paras 47-48

The Declaration encourages states to sign and ratify the UN Convention against Cybercrime and supports negotiations for a supplementary protocol. It also calls for cooperation on cybercrime, data security, malicious software and globally interoperable rules and standards.

India already has cybercrime offences and procedures for electronic evidence. But the central difficulty in modern cybercrime is increasingly not defining the offence. It is obtaining the evidence.

A fraud committed against an Indian victim may involve a foreign platform, servers in another country and a suspect in a third jurisdiction.

If India moves towards implementation of the Convention, its legal architecture may have to address cross-border preservation and access to electronic evidence, mutual legal assistance, investigative cooperation and potentially new mechanisms for obtaining data held overseas.

The result could extend beyond amendments to cybercrime provisions. It could require changes across criminal procedure, evidence and international legal assistance.

4. Gig Workers: From Domestic Benefits To Portable Social Security

BRICS commitment: Para 126

The Declaration calls for exploring social-protection coverage for gig and platform workers, protecting cross-border workers and ensuring portability of benefits while avoiding double social-security contributions.

India already recognises gig and platform workers under the Code on Social Security, 2020. India has also been pursuing Social Security Agreements with foreign countries. BRICS labour ministers have separately discussed information exchange on employment and social security for cross-border labour flows and initiating social-security agreements among BRICS nations.

The next legal question is therefore whether a worker's social-security rights can travel with the worker across borders.

That could require rules for recognising contribution periods in another BRICS country, allocating liability between platforms and employers, avoiding double contributions and transferring benefits across systems. India's social-security framework would have to move from a predominantly territorial model towards portable, interoperable social protection.

5. Pathogens: Reconciling Sovereignty With Rapid International Sharing

BRICS commitment: Para 50

The Declaration simultaneously reaffirms states' sovereign rights over biological resources and their right to legislate on access and benefit sharing, while supporting negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing Annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement.

India already has an access-and-benefit-sharing regime governing biological resources. But pandemic preparedness creates a different legal problem.

A pathogen (any microorganism or infectious agent that can cause disease in a person, animal, or plant) with pandemic potential may need to be shared internationally quickly for vaccine and diagnostic development. At the same time, the country providing the pathogen sample expects equitable benefits from products developed from it.

Indian law may therefore have to reconcile two objectives that have traditionally operated separately: sovereign control over biological resources and rapid international pathogen access.

That could require a specialised legal mechanism governing who can share pathogen material, how quickly it can be shared, who authorises it, and what benefits India receives from resulting vaccines, diagnostics or therapeutics.

6. Securities Settlement: From Domestic Depositories To Cross-Border Recognition

BRICS commitment: Para 94

BRICS has begun examining the legal, institutional, regulatory and technical dimensions of settlement and depositary systems across member jurisdictions, with the Declaration recording continued dialogue and cooperation.

India already has a mature securities settlement and depository framework. The problem arises when Indian infrastructure has to interact with a foreign depository or settlement system.

Questions then arise over settlement finality, beneficial ownership, collateral, insolvency, enforcement of security interests and the applicable law when an asset moves through two jurisdictions.

A BRICS settlement architecture would therefore require India to move beyond regulating Indian depositories towards rules for recognition and legal interoperability between depositories and settlement systems.

7. Research Data: From Domestic Data Governance To Cross-Border Data Sharing

BRICS commitment: Para 73

The Declaration proposes a BRICS Science and Research Repository to facilitate access to scientific and research outputs, while making the system subject to national laws, data-security requirements and intellectual-property rights.

India already regulates data through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, sector-specific rules and intellectual-property law. But a common BRICS research repository raises a different question: how should Indian law deal with data that is simultaneously subject to India's restrictions and part of a foreign-accessible research system?

The commitment could push India towards clearer rules for cross-border research-data access, data localisation, IP licensing and recognition of foreign research institutions, particularly where datasets contain sensitive or commercially valuable information.

The shift would be from regulating who may process data within India to determining how Indian data can lawfully participate in a shared international data infrastructure.

The BRICS Declaration is a statement of intent, not a binding instrument, and India retains full discretion over whether, how and when to translate any of these seven commitments into domestic law. But declarations of this kind tend to shape the terms of subsequent debate even when they impose no obligation; they signal where multilateral consensus is forming, and where India's regulators will increasingly be expected to explain not just their domestic rationale, but their compatibility with systems beyond India's borders. For a legal framework still oriented primarily inward, that is a meaningful change in the questions it will be asked to answer.