International Legal Foundations of Economic Cooperation among the BRICS States: System of Sources, Principles, and Institutional Mechanisms

The relevance of the study is determined by the expansion of economic cooperation among the BRICS states and the need to define the international legal nature of the mechanisms of cooperation developing within the association. The purpose of the study is to identify the system of sources, principles, and institutional mechanisms of international legal regulation of economic cooperation among the BRICS states. The scientific significance of the study lies in the systematization of the legal foundations of such cooperation, taking into account the specific nature of BRICS as an informal mechanism of interstate coordination that is not based on a single constituent international treaty. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of applying the proposed approach to the legal assessment of instruments and institutions established within the BRICS framework and to determining their legal nature. The study identifies three levels of the legal foundations of economic cooperation: generally recognized principles and norms of international law, international treaties concluded in connection with the development of cooperation within the BRICS framework, and non-treaty instruments. A distinction is drawn between mechanisms of interstate coordination and institutions established on an international treaty basis. It is concluded that economic cooperation within BRICS is regulated through a combination of general norms of international law, specific treaty-based mechanisms, and coordinated non-treaty instruments. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the comprehensive systematization of the sources and institutional forms of BRICS economic cooperation with due regard to differences in their legal nature and degree of binding force.