PAKISTAN regards the abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) by India as an illegal act and argues that there is no clause in the IWT that speaks of unilateral suspension; termination under Article XII (4) and modification under Article XII (3) both should be bilaterally ratified.
Now, international law has been the legal defence that Pakistan has.
Pakistan continues to argue that parallel dispute proceedings are not a material breach in terms of VCLT Article 60(3), since it does not renounce the essence of water sharing. The Article states: A material breach of a treaty, for the purposes of this article, consists in: (a) a repudiation of the treaty not sanctioned by the present Convention; or (b) the violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty.
Moreover, citing the ICJ Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros case (para 104) between Slovakia and Hungary, it takes the view that a state of war does not necessarily circumvent a foundational treaty. ARSIWA countermeasures have to be proportional as per Article 51 which states: Countermeasures must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question. Pakistan claims that refusal to water poses a mass humanitarian catastrophe to more than 200 million people and violates preemptive norms of human rights concerning access to water. Pakistan and India are signatories to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 (ICESCR) (Articles 11 and 12), in which the right to water has been authoritatively interpreted by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).
Although the IWT is suspended, customary international law lives on. This incorporates the principle of equitable utilisation and the no-harm rule (UN Watercourses Convention Articles 5–7), which require India to continue supplying essential flow information to the downstream state.
On 27 June 2025, the Court of Arbitration (CoA), in its Supplemental Award, declared the validity of the treaty and dismissed the legality of the unilateral abeyance by India. This legal transparency has not stopped India from pursuing highly controversial projects such as the 1,856 MW Sawalkote and the recently sanctioned Dulhasti Stage-II on the Chenab River. Pakistan continues to insist that such projects, along with Pakal Dul and Ratle, constitute an outrageous breach of the design limits of the IWT and only became feasible as India sought to avoid third-party monitoring and data-sharing protocols. Pakistan warns of grave humanitarian crisis driven by climate change and ……. insecurity and may seek recourse through the ICJ or UNSC.
The Indian political tactic of so-called abeyance appears to be an attempt to coerce renegotiation of a long-standing agreement under new geopolitical conditions. Nevertheless, this action is fiercely opposed by serious legal considerations that carry greater weight—namely the sanctity of treaties (pacta sunt servanda) and overriding humanitarian concerns. The future of the Indus Waters Treaty thus hangs between coercive diplomacy and the rule of international law. (Concluded)
—The writer is an alumnus of QAU, MPhil scholar and a freelance columnist, based in Islamabad.
