Pakistan’s lawfare strategy against India has finally been blunted

Columnist Raja Muneeb argues that India is changing the way it responds to Pakistan’s use of international legal and arbitration forums. The piece focuses on the Indus Waters Treaty dispute, the Hague arbitration process and India’s refusal to recognise the tribunal’s authority.

Pakistan has long understood that it cannot compete with India on the conventional balance of power. Its answer has therefore been to engage India on other battlefields where India’s size and strength can be converted into political and diplomatic vulnerabilities. For Pakistan the repeated military confrontations have failed to produce any desired results. Hence, Islamabad has repeatedly shifted the contest into international institutions, treaty mechanisms, arbitration panels and diplomatic forums with an objective to create a process that keeps India tied down, forces it to repeatedly defend legitimate actions and places international pressure on New Delhi.

The latest episode involving the Haque Court of Arbitration on the Indus Waters Treaty is a particularly revealing example. The Hague-based Court of Arbitration has delivered a ruling that Pakistan has predictably welcomed while India has rejected both the ruling and the authority of the tribunal to pronounce upon India’s sovereign decisions. The tribunal has maintained that the treaty remains operative despite India’s decision to place it in abeyance and has sought to impose restrictions relating to India’s hydroelectric projects on the Western Rivers. India, however, never participated in the proceedings because it has consistently disputed the legality of the tribunal’s constitution and its jurisdiction over the issues before it.

That distinction is critical. Pakistan would like this episode to be presented as a straightforward case of an international court ruling against India. It is nothing of the sort. The more fundamental question is over whether Pakistan can take an issue through a particular dispute-resolution mechanism, have a tribunal pronounce upon it without India’s participation and then expect India to regard that pronouncement as binding. New Delhi has refused to accept that premise, and that refusal represents a significant change in India’s approach to Pakistan’s longstanding strategy of internationalising bilateral disputes.

For decades, Pakistan has attempted to transform India’s legitimate development of its water resources into an international controversy. The Indus Waters Treaty permits India certain uses of the Western Rivers, including hydroelectric generation, subject to specified technical conditions. Yet almost every significant Indian project has had the potential to become another legal contest. Pakistan has repeatedly challenged the design and operation of Indian hydroelectric projects and sought intervention through mechanisms involving the World Bank, neutral experts and arbitration. The result was that India’s development........

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