The leaders of India, Australia, Japan and the United States are expected to meet in Manila in November, alongside the ASEAN Summit. It would be the first Quad leaders' summit since the second term of the present U.S. administration began. The authors argue that the summit can reset the grouping after a turbulent 2025, but its future depends on how Washington engages with the Indo-Pacific.

Figure 1 — The Quad in the Indo-Pacific: capitals, the Manila venue and South China Sea flashpoints

The Quad links the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific; Manila sits on the eastern rim of the South China Sea, close to contested features such as Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal. Base geography: Natural Earth 1:50m, public domain. International boundaries are deliberately not drawn; the map is for locating places only.

• 2004 — Tsunami Core Group: the four navies coordinated relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the first instance of cooperation among the four.
• 2007 — First Quad: an initial dialogue was held, and the Malabar naval exercise was expanded; the format lapsed after Australia withdrew in 2008.
• November 2017 — Revival: senior officials met in Manila on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit — the same city now set to host the leaders.
• 2018 — Indo-Pacific framing: the U.S. renamed its Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command.
• 2019: first Foreign Ministers' meeting (New York).
• March 2021: first leaders' summit (virtual), followed by in-person summits in Washington (2021), Tokyo (2022), Hiroshima (2023) and Wilmington (2024).
• 2020 onwards — Malabar has included all four navies.

• A turbulent year: 2025 was the low point of the group's political alignment, owing to Washington's shifting priorities and strains in its ties with Quad partners, especially India. The India-hosted summit did not take place.
• Not a collapse: working-level cooperation continued. The Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) was upgraded into an Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration framework, launched in New Delhi in May 2026.
• Diplomatic glue: Foreign Ministers met twice in 2025 (both in Washington) and three times in 2026 (New Delhi, Manila, Atlanta).
• The big question: how the U.S. engages with the Indo-Pacific, as its attention is pulled by the Russia–Ukraine war, transatlantic issues and West Asia.
• Partners hedge: U.S. demands for burden-sharing and its review of AUKUS have pushed partners to diversify their security ties.
• A message from Manila: the summit can reaffirm sovereignty in the South and East China Seas and respect for international law.

• Japan: its OCEAN framework (One Cooperative Effort Among Nations) seeks deeper security alignment with partner countries.
• Australia: stronger defence ties with India, Japan, Southeast Asia and Pacific Island countries.
• India: multi-alignment — wide defence ties across the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific, guided by SAGAR (2015), now MAHASAGAR, and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019).
• Mini-laterals: the Japan–Australia–India (JAI) Defence Ministers met in Cebu; extra-regional powers such as France are also building ties.

• ASEAN centrality: hosting the summit alongside the ASEAN meetings answers Southeast Asian concerns that the Quad sidelines ASEAN.
• Front line of the South China Sea: the Philippines faces repeated confrontations with China at features such as Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal.
• Legal anchor: the 2016 arbitral award under UNCLOS (Philippines v. China) rejected China's "nine-dash line" claims; China does not accept it.
• Symbolism: the Quad was revived in Manila in 2017; returning there signals continuity.

• Strength: the Quad's informality let it survive political strain — functional cooperation continued even without a summit.
• Weakness: the same informality means the group depends heavily on leader-level political will, especially in Washington.
• India's balance: the Quad complements India's strategic autonomy; India avoids a military framing and stresses public goods — health, technology, disaster relief.
• Way forward: a light coordinating mechanism, predictable summit cycles, and delivery on public goods for the region would make the Quad less dependent on any one capital's priorities.

With pendency at a record 92,318 cases at the end of 2025, the authors argue that the Supreme Court has become a general court of appeal. They propose splitting it into a lean Constitutional Court in Delhi and four or five regional Courts of Appeal — not to reduce its reach but to sort its work.

• Article 124: established the Court with the Chief Justice and seven other judges, leaving Parliament free to increase the number.
• Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956: amended repeatedly — strength rose to 34 (including the CJI) in 2019; Parliament raised the sanctioned strength to 38 in 2026.
• Article 145(3): a substantial question of law on interpretation of the Constitution must be heard by at least five judges — a Constitution Bench.
• Article 130: the Court sits in Delhi or at other places the CJI may appoint with the President's approval — the basis for proposals on regional Benches.
• Bihar Legal Support Society v. Chief Justice of India (1986): a Constitution Bench said the Court was not meant to be an ordinary court of appeal.
• 229th Law Commission Report (2009): proposed a Constitution Bench in Delhi and four regional Cassation Benches.
• 2016 reference: a three-judge Bench framed questions on creating a National Court of Appeal and referred them to a larger Bench; the reference remains unheard.

• A drift in role: the docket has been taken over by Special Leave Petitions, turning the final constitutional court into a general court of fourth appeal.
• Specialisation: a Constitutional Court hearing a curated stream of cases could sit in full Benches and give consistent, predictable rulings.
• Access to justice: regional courts would bring final appeals closer to citizens far from Delhi.
• Global practice: most large legal systems use a pyramid — a top court deciding few cases carefully, with lower tiers handling volume.
• The route: the 229th Law Commission Report said Article 130 may permit regional Benches without a constitutional amendment.
• Sequence: a split must come with a filter on what the top court hears, or it will inherit the same congestion.

• Objection — indivisibility: successive Chief Justices have argued that a divided Court would no longer be a single supreme authority; regional courts could be seen as lesser and litigants would still push to reach Delhi.
• Objection — conflicting rulings: several regional courts could interpret the law differently, weakening the uniformity that Article 141 secures.
• Authors' reply: the Court is already divided — into dozens of two- and three-judge Benches whose rulings often conflict; separating the constitutional core would restore coherence.
• Other concerns: regional courts need judges, infrastructure and a clear rule on which cases may still reach the top; otherwise a new layer adds delay.

• Strength: the proposal addresses the structure of the problem, not only its size.
• The filter is the key: without strict criteria for Article 136, any structure will be flooded again — Brazil's experience shows this.
• Complementary reforms: fewer government appeals (the State is the largest litigant), stronger High Courts, filled vacancies and better case management.
• Legitimacy: any change touching the Court's structure should be built on wide consultation and, where needed, a constitutional amendment rather than administrative action alone.