ABSTRACT
The diversity within BRICS, their differences from other developing countries, and their potential to reflect and represent the global South are explored with respect to climate change, finance, trade, aid, human rights and intervention, and development. This chapter describes the BRICS grouping. It examines whether this can represent developing countries on the issue areas of climate change, trade and finance, and the responsibility to protect. The chapter looks at development and the UN development system. Developing countries found it convenient to place the primary blame for their underdevelopment on colonialism, and looked to technical assistance, financial transfers, and concessional terms of trade from the West as the panacea for their economic ills. With the statist model the goals of strengthening state capacity, promoting social cohesion, maintaining territorial integrity and political independence, resisting encroachments on national sovereignty, achieving economic growth to bankroll material progress, and advancing the indicators of human development receive top priority over human rights, democracy, and unregulated markets.
