By Sanjay Raman Sinha
Held in the run-up to the 18th BRICS Summit under India’s rotating chairmanship, the BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum 2026 was landmark in more ways than one. As judicial head of the host country, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant used the occasion not merely to discuss judicial cooperation among member-states, but also to propose a broader way of thinking about the role of courts in a rapidly changing world.
The CJI’s central proposition was striking in its simplicity: justice is the load-bearing wall of a building. It may not be the most visible part of the structure. It may not appear in photographs or attract the attention commanded by its more imposing features. But without it, the entire edifice is vulnerable.
“Our role, as representatives of the justice delivery system, is much like that of a load-bearing wall within a building,” the CJI said. “No architect ever photographs it for the brochure, and yet no building stands without it.”
The metaphor provided a unifying thread to discussions that otherwise ranged across very different territories—mediation, cross-border arbitration, artificial intelligence in courts and ecological governance.
At their core, however, all four subjects raised the same question: how can judicial institutions respond to challenges that increasingly cross borders, technologies and traditional legal boundaries without sacrificing fairness, predictability and human dignity?
A LIVING NALANDA
In his opening address, the CJI reached back to one of India’s most enduring intellectual traditions: Nalanda University. He recalled how students subscribing to diverse political and religious philosophies were admitted without discrimination and given access to a platform where knowledge remained free from ideological encumbrances. Dialogue was encouraged, disagreement was tolerated and intellectual inquiry flourished. The CJI proposed that BRICS itself could be understood in similar terms—as “a living Nalanda University”.
The analogy was significant.
The BRICS countries do not share a single legal system, constitutional tradition or judicial philosophy. Their legal cultures are shaped by different histories, institutions and political experiences. Judicial cooperation, therefore, cannot realistically depend on doctrinal uniformity. It must instead depend on the ability to work together despite differences.
“We are not merely a collection of jurisdictions, we are a fellowship of judicial minds, bound together by the shared belief that the enduring values of justice can meet the dynamic challenges of our time,” the CJI said.
The idea offered a different conception of legal cooperation: not the erasure of legal diversity, but its management through dialogue. Pluralism need not become an obstacle to a common agenda.
MEDIATION: FROM ALTERNATIVE TO STRATEGIC TOOL
That philosophy was evident in the discussion on mediation. The CJI argued that mediation should no longer be regarded as adjudication’s junior partner or merely an alternative to litigation. In international commercial disputes, it can serve a strategic purpose of its own.
Mediation, the CJI pointed out, can preserve relationships between parties in a way that formal adjudication may not. That becomes particularly important in cross-border commerce, where today’s litigants may remain tomorrow’s business partners.
The Singapore Convention on Mediation was cited as evidence of a growing international recognition that mediated settlements can be given enforceability and legitimacy as a category distinct from arbitral awards.
The objective, therefore, was not simply to resolve disputes, but to preserve the relationships and trust upon which international commerce depends.
“Let us strengthen mediation so that dialogue can prevail, commerce can continue, and trust can grow across our BRICS members and partner countries,” the CJI said.
ARBITRATION AND THE COST OF UNCERTAINTY
If the CJI was optimistic about mediation, he was more candid about the difficulties confronting international arbitration.
Transnational cooperation mechanisms and guidelines exist, but a genuinely uniform global standard remains elusive. Different national approaches to enforcement continue to create uncertainty, particularly when courts invoke broad concepts such as public policy. For businesses operating across jurisdictions, uncertainty has a price.
The CJI’s argument for greater procedural harmonisation was, therefore, ultimately an argument about commercial confidence. Where the enforcement of arbitral awards remains unpredictable, the cost of doing business rises.
“Poor justice delivery system becomes, in every practical sense, an unwritten punitive cost of doing business, one that no legislature ever imposed, yet every investor ends up paying,” he observed.
The converse, he argued, is equally powerful. “Courts that deliver judgments swiftly, consistently and in language the world can rely upon are capable of removing that hidden cost altogether,” the CJI said.
The proposition placed judicial efficiency and predictability not merely in the realm of legal administration, but at the heart of economic cooperation.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, HUMAN JUDGMENT
Technology presented another challenge. As artificial intelligence rapidly enters courtrooms and judicial administration, the Forum turned to the ethical boundaries that must accompany its use.
The message was clear: technology may assist justice, but it cannot replace the human judgment at its heart.
The question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will become part of the justice system. It is how judiciaries can use its capabilities without allowing efficiency to overwhelm accountability, transparency or the human dimension of judging.
For a judicial system, technological sophistication cannot become a substitute for reasoned human decision-making.
The challenge is, therefore, to ensure that the machine remains an instrument of justice rather than becoming its arbiter.
JUSTICE AS THE FOUNDATION OF BRICS
The CJI also sought to place judicial institutions at the centre of the larger BRICS project.
Economic progress, technology, dispute resolution and sustainable energy are often treated as separate pillars of cooperation. The CJI suggested that this is a misconception. “Economic progress, technology, dispute resolution and sustainable energy…are not four separate engines running in parallel. They rest upon a single foundation, and that foundation is the timely and predictable delivery of justice.” It was a larger claim than one about courts.
Economic partnerships require enforceable contracts. Technology requires rules and accountability. Cross-border commerce requires predictable dispute resolution. Sustainable development requires legal frameworks capable of balancing competing interests.
Justice, in this conception, is not an institutional afterthought. It is the infrastructure that allows the other systems to function.
COURTS AS MORAL COMPASSES FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
The Forum’s discussion of ecological governance extended that institutional responsibility even further. The CJI urged judiciaries to act as a moral compass in environmental decision-making, arguing that environmental judgments are ultimately judgments about the future. “The rivers we protect today will sing their gratitude to generations to come; the forests we shield will stand as living testaments to our foresight,” he said.
India’s own judicial experience provided the backdrop, including the recognition of the right to a healthy environment within Article 21 and judicial interventions involving the Great Indian Bustard and the Delhi Ridge.
But the CJI also cautioned against reducing environmental governance to an absolutist choice between conservation and development. “An entirely preserved forest within an undeveloped nation benefits no one. Conversely, a nation that develops without regard for the apparatus that sustains it will maim its future generations.”
The challenge for courts, therefore, is one of balance—protecting ecological systems while recognising the legitimate requirements of development.
BUILDING A SHARED JUDICIAL KNOWLEDGE BASE
The Forum also looked beyond individual judgments towards institutional cooperation. Member-states deliberated on mechanisms for sharing technical best practices and co-developing regulatory policies, in alignment with broader efforts across other BRICS meetings during India’s 2026 chairmanship.
The objective was to create a common repository of judicial knowledge—a platform through which different legal systems could learn from one another without sacrificing their individual identities.
That approach brought the Forum back to the idea of Nalanda. A university does not derive its strength from everyone thinking alike. Its strength comes from bringing different traditions of thought into the same intellectual space. The same, the Forum suggested, can be true of international judicial cooperation.
A NEW VOCABULARY FOR JUDICIAL COOPERATION
The BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum 2026 ultimately sought to move the conversation beyond the traditional language of treaties, precedents and institutional protocols.
Its larger vocabulary was one of trust, dialogue, predictability, technology, sustainability and human dignity.
The common thread was the recognition that the justice system increasingly operates in a world where disputes do not respect national borders, technology changes faster than legislation, commerce depends upon confidence and environmental decisions can affect generations yet unborn.
The courts cannot remain insulated from these transformations. But neither can they abandon the principles that give the judicial institution its legitimacy.
Closing the Forum, the CJI called for a global jurisprudence grounded in equity, fairness and human dignity. His final words offered the simplest expression of the Forum’s ambition: “May law continue to be the north star, guiding humanity towards the horizon of shared prosperity.” The metaphor with which he opened the Forum had come full circle.
Justice may be the load-bearing wall—largely unseen, rarely celebrated and often taken for granted. But when the structure of international cooperation begins to bear heavier loads, it is the strength of that wall that determines whether the building stands.
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