New Delhi: India joined an emerging coalition of middle powers seeking to strengthen multilateral institutions and push for greater representation in the UN, but External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took a markedly more restrained line than others, who openly criticised the actions of major powers and cited specific instances of violations of international law.The new loose grouping, named Partners for Multilateralism (P4M), was unveiled on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, bringing together Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, India and Kenya as co-sponsors alongside the European Union.Its founding declaration set out the diagnosis in its opening lines, warning of “growing polarisation, the spread of conflict, violations of international law and the increasing resort to power politics, protectionism, coercion and the threat or use of force.” It went further cautioned that “economic interdependence is increasingly used as a source of leverage, disrupting trade, supply chains, investment and development finance.”That language offered an almost straight line from the speech at Davos where Carney made his widely praised “rupture” speech to the new partnership being launched in New York.At the World Economic Forum in January, Carney had said the world was “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”, and that great powers had “begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion”. His remedy then was for middle powers to act together “because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu”.Asserting that the multilateral system founded on the UN Charter remained “indispensable”, the signatories committed themselves to “renewing and reforming” international institutions so that it was “more effective, representative, inclusive and fit for purpose”.An unspoken theme running through most of the interventions was that middle and smaller powers needed to band together amid growing pressure from major powers, particularly the United States, without naming Washington directly. Much of the language around coercion, protectionism, economic leverage and attacks on international institutions echoed actions taken by the Trump administration, while China barely figured in the speeches.Costa opened by observing that the UN Charter was “being repeatedly violated, including by permanent members of the United Nations Security Council”. While EU has a running trade dispute with US, it has also criticised Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira, standing in for President Lula, was blunter about who he meant. There were “those who seek to divide the world into spheres of influence in an attempt to halt the inevitable emergence of a multipolar order,” Vieira told the room, and in doing so “they attack multilateralism, international law, and the UN Charter.” He named the institutions in the firing line as the UN, the World Trade Organisation, the International Criminal Court, the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and the World Health Organisation, a roster that maps closely onto the bodies the Trump administration has defunded, sanctioned or quit. The administration’s creation of so-called Board of Peace for Gaza, tasked with overseeing the territory’s reconstruction, governance and security, is perceived as an attempt to replace the UN and its Security Council.Vieira pressed the point further, insisting that “the lives of Palestinians or Ukrainians are as valuable as our own, and that Cuban and Danish sovereignty is as sacred as that of our own countries”. The reference to Danish sovereignty was a pointed one, coming amid sustained pressure from Washington over Greenland and US efforts to expand its military presence there.Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley reached for a starker example, recalling that “on the fourth of January, we woke up to the news that there had been an incursion in Venezuela.” Small states, she argued, “can only survive in a rules-based order,” because “if others really want to take you out or take control, you have nothing to stop it.”By contrast, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, whose remarks were the sparest of the evening, did not dwell, explicitly or implicitly, on particular countries or instances of the perceived breakdown of the international order.He said only that the group met “at a time when the global order is under stress”, a strain he attributed to “extreme competition, geopolitical tensions, and actual conflicts”.Jaishankar highlighted what he termed the “4F crisis” of fuel, food, fertilizer and finance and said that new capabilities and concerns required “frameworks and guardrails”. Where there were threats from “choke points, dominance, and disruption”, he said, countries should pursue de-risking and diversification.“Multilateralism will be best served when international law, rules, and norms are scrupulously observed,” he stated, before calling for “reformed multilateralism” with more participative deliberations and transparent decision-making.India is in the running for the lone Asia-Pacific seat for the 2028-29 term, a contest the General Assembly will settle in a vote next year, with Tajikistan as the challenger.While the Indian foreign minister did not restate India’s candidacy for non-permanent seat or to be a permanent member in a reformed council, others were far less coy. In fact, representation drew the loudest demands, with the Kenyan president Ruto arguing “Africa cannot remain the only continent without permanent representation in the institution entrusted with international peace and security”. Mottley backed the need for Africa to be represented “as a matter of right” and “for India equally to be appropriately represented”. She also made a case for a permanent Security Council seat for small island states, saying “small states have a different perspective”.There was also the question of trust, which both Ruto and Mottley said had to be earned. “Credible multilateralism cannot simply ask countries to trust institutions”, said Ruto. “Those institutions must give countries reasons to trust them.” International law, he added, “cannot be a shield for some and a restraint for others”.Incidentally, Barbados also noted that strengthening the rules-based order itself had a financial cost which would have to be borne. “If we have to carry more weight by also increasing our subventions, then so be it, because there is a price to protecting the rules-based order,” she said.With widely differing positions on what a reformed institution should be, it was not surprising that the declaration, which was signed by 15 additional countries, just promised only a more representative system in general termsThe Canadian formulation of P4M appeared to offer one way around the difficulty of achieving agreement among all UN members. Rather than waiting for consensus, Ottawa’s representative argued, countries willing to act could work together on individual problems and then take successful initiatives back to the wider system.“The failure is the habit of insisting that every problem be solved by everyone at once, and then calling the paralysis that follows multilateralism,” said David Lametti, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN, who read out Carney’s remarks after the prime minister was unable to reach New York because of widespread flight disruptions in the US Northeast.Effective multilateralism, the address argued, “works in layers”, pairing universal bodies with “coalitions of the willing assembled around specific problems”. For P4M, Lametti said, this meant “small groups formed around problems rather than around geography or size”, or “variable geometry, not as an alternative to multilateralism, but as an instrument of it”.Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, picked up the same theme, saying middle powers “must accept their responsibility to play a stronger role”. He also used the platform to press Australia’s bid for a non-permanent Security Council seat for 2029-2030.