When India placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam terror attack of April 2025, the decision was presented by the Modi government as an act of strategic resolve. The message was that Pakistan could not support cross-border terrorism while continuing to benefit from cooperation over shared rivers. The slogan might have been politically compelling but the policy behind it was legally doubtful, materially ineffective and strategically shortsighted. The latest ruling by the Court of Arbitration in The Hague, and India’s categorical refusal to accept it, have now converted a self-defeating decision into a serious diplomatic blunder.

The Court has ruled that the 1960 Treaty remains fully in force and India cannot unilaterally suspend its obligations. It has also ordered interim restrictions on construction at the Ratle Hydroelectric Plant in Kashmir. India must not raise the dam wall or power intake structure beyond specified levels until 90 days after a World Bank-appointed neutral expert delivers a decision, expected by July 2027. New Delhi has responded by calling the tribunal illegally constituted and insisting that its pronouncements will have no effect on India’s projects.

India has long contested the simultaneous establishment of a Court of Arbitration and a neutral expert process under the Treaty. It is entitled to advance that legal argument. But refusing to participate does not make the proceedings disappear, nor does labelling an adverse award an assault on sovereignty dispose of India’s treaty obligations. Sovereignty includes the capacity to enter binding agreements. It does not grant a state the freedom to disregard them whenever compliance becomes politically inconvenient.

The Indus Waters Treaty contains no provision allowing either party to place it in abeyance unilaterally. Indeed, its durability came from insulating water cooperation from the violent fluctuations of India-Pakistan relations. It survived the wars of 1965 and 1971, the Kargil conflict and repeated military crises. If even war did not extinguish the Treaty, linking its operation to an open-ended demand that Pakistan........

© National Herald