Members.

Seats are counted by formula; responsibility is earned by record. The five Responsible members were chosen for a track record of acting responsibly at home and abroad — restraint where power allowed otherwise, generosity where keeping was easier. They carry the manifesto first, at home and then for the world, which is why their seat weight is raised.

Bharat (India)

An empathetic voice for the Global South.

• Peace first — it pursues its unresolved border claims through diplomacy rather than force, and has met repeated terror provocations with measured, targeted responses that never escalated into full-scale war. Though the region’s largest power, it has not turned that strength on its neighbours’ lands: its troops left Bangladesh within three months of helping it win independence in 1971, and in 2015 the two settled their border by exchanging enclaves.
• Peacekeeping — the largest contributor of peacekeepers in history: more than 290,000 to over 50 international missions since the 1950s.
• Largest democracy — having won its own freedom in 1947, it built a democracy for one in six people on Earth; its 2024 general election, with some 640 million votes cast, was the largest in history.
• Global South — convened the Voice of the Global South Summit in 2023 and, as G20 president, brought the African Union in as a permanent member.
• International Solar Alliance — co-founded with France at COP21 in 2015 and hosted in Gurugram; it now counts more than 100 members.
• Vegetarian at scale — home to more vegetarians than anywhere else, an estimated 300 million or more: grain that feeds people rather than livestock, and fewer lives taken for food.
• Light footprint — about 2 tonnes of CO₂ per person a year, a fraction of the 14–15 tonnes per person in the United States or Canada, with a rising share of renewables.
• UPI payments — a free, open, real-time payments network built as public infrastructure, now accepted from Singapore and the UAE to France.
• Vaccine Maitri — free COVID-19 vaccination at home, over two billion doses, and vaccines shipped to nearly 100 regions, many as gifts.
• AI for all — co-chaired the 2025 Paris AI Action Summit and hosted the 2026 AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, whose declaration — guided by “welfare for all, happiness for all” — was endorsed by over 90 members and organisations.

Russia

Restraint at the height of power.

• Nuclear restraint — holds the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, yet has not used it in the Ukraine war despite heavy losses.
• 1991 — let the Soviet Union dissolve peacefully, recognising 14 republics as independent.
• Borders by treaty — settled its border with China (2004–08), handing over Tarabarov and half of Bolshoy Ussuriysky island, and split the disputed Barents Sea with Norway (2010).
• Space for all — after the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, Soyuz was the only ride to the International Space Station for every partner’s astronauts until 2020.
• Ethical AI — its AI Alliance drew up a national AI Code of Ethics in 2021, putting people first; more than 1,200 signatories have joined it.

Germany

Rebuilt as a peaceful, progressive democracy.

• Faced its past — has paid reparations since 1952 and placed the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe at the heart of Berlin.
• Basic Law, 1949 — opens with “Human dignity shall be inviolable” and outlaws preparing a war of aggression (Art. 26).
• Peaceful reunification — reunited in 1990 without a shot fired, and renounced every claim east of the Oder–Neisse line.
• Open and green — took in over a million asylum seekers in 2015–16; renewables now supply more than half its electricity.
• AI for all — since 2019 its FAIR Forward initiative has opened AI training data, tools and skills to partners in Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda.

Japan

Chose reconciliation over grievance.

• No grudge — struck by atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it became one of the United States’ closest friends.
• Article 9, 1947 — renounces war as a sovereign right; Japan has not fought a war since 1945.
• Three Non-Nuclear Principles — since 1967, never possess, produce or permit nuclear weapons, though it has the know-how to build them.
• Giving — the world’s largest aid donor from 1991 to 2000.
• Trustworthy AI — launched the Hiroshima AI Process under its 2023 G7 presidency, the first international code of conduct for advanced AI developers, now backed by a Friends Group of more than 60 members.

France

Where liberty was written down for all.

• Free speech, 1789 — the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen calls the free communication of thoughts and opinions “one of the most precious rights of man” (Art. 11).
• Liberty, shared — gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1886.
• Abolition — abolished slavery across its colonies in 1794, the first colonial power to do so, and for good in 1848.
• Paris Agreement — brokered the climate accord at COP21 in 2015, adopted by 196 parties.
• International Solar Alliance — co-founded with India at COP21 in 2015 to bring solar power within everyone’s reach; it now counts more than 100 members.
• AI for all — co-founded the Global Partnership on AI with Canada (2020), and in 2025 hosted the AI Action Summit in Paris, co-chaired with India, launching Current AI — a $400 million public-interest AI partnership.