The United Nations’ Special Rapporteurs and independent experts issued a detailed report on their specialized areas of jurisdiction on 15 December 2025. The report, which was finalized by five high-powered experts on 16 October 2025, in essence, serves as a serious charge sheet against the incumbent Indian government for a number of unlawful and irrational actions unleashed against the people of Pakistan in May this year.
The report implicates India in several violations and breaches of the global order, including: (i) violating international law; (ii) violating fundamental human rights, including the right to life, personal security and livelihoods; (iii) blaming Pakistan without providing any evidence linking Islamabad to the Pahalgam incident; (iv) unilaterally deciding to hold the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in ‘abeyance’; (v) failing to notify the UN Security Council and meet essential prerequisites for invoking Article 51 of the UN Charter; (vi) violating Article 2(4) of customary international law, which prohibits any state from threatening or using armed force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, whether the target is a state or non-state actor; (vii) violating Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), infringing upon Pakistan’s sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention in foreign states; and (viii) launching a direct military attack against a sovereign nuclear-powered neighbor, thereby threatening global peace and security and inviting mutually assured destruction (MAD).
It appears that the Indian government had preconceived likely dividends to be accrued from the Pahalgam false-flag operation, which tragically took 26 precious lives. Firstly, in its immediate response, India blamed Pakistan without providing even a hint of evidence and refused mutual or third-party investigations, thereby creating a pretext for launching military strikes inside Pakistan. Secondly, the very next day after the incident, India unilaterally held the IWT in abeyance, prompting Pakistan to term such a step as an ‘act of war,’ since the treaty contains no provision for unilateral suspension. Water, being one of the global commons, cannot be used as a weapon of war by any state. India’s actions in this regard are not only a breach of international law but also constitute a violation of international obligations. This could have severe human rights implications for Pakistan, particularly concerning access to water, food security, environmental sustainability and socio-economic development. Citing the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the report emphasized that cross-border water supplies must not be used as instruments of political or economic pressure.
The report explicitly declares India’s use of force against Pakistan as unlawful, as it risked escalation and endangered millions of civilian lives in both countries. The experts dismissed India’s self-conceived interpretations and justifications of Article 51 of the UN Charter—such as the right to respond, preempt and deter cross-border attacks—and declared its actions illegal and unlawful. India’s actions were, in fact, in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter, as it failed to notify the UN Security Council (UNSC) regarding its so-called Operation Sindoor against Pakistan. Notably, Article 51 affirms the right to self-defense to any UN member state only if an armed attack occurs against it and is essentially notified to/by the UNSC. Even attacks by non-state actors must be notified to the UNSC. The UN Charter does not recognize the right to unilateral use of military force against another country, even as a counter-terrorism measure. The unlawful and disproportionate use of force by India against Pakistan constituted a violation of the right to life under Article 6 of the ICCPR, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties and damage to religious sites, while concurrently granting Pakistan the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Unfortunately, India has repeatedly attempted to conceal its brutal use of state force against political dissent, using the global war against terror as a pretext. Internally, this has involved the forceful suppression of the legitimate right to self-determination of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) and other separatist political factions. Externally, India has exported state-sponsored terrorism and employed terrorism as state policy even against NATO member states to suppress political dissent. Additionally, by following an identical playbook and rhetoric, the Indian leadership, strategic community and even the Godi media appear to have lost credibility and reliability both domestically and globally. They now face serious questions regarding India’s continuous decline in regional and global geostrategic influence, the politicization and widening military differential of the Indian armed forces relative to regional counterparts and India’s unprecedentedly shrinking space in global geopolitics.
Historically, the people of Pakistan should extend profound gratitude to the BJP-led governments in India, as their actions have circumstantially provided Pakistan with opportunities to achieve insurmountable deterrence through nuclearization and to become a peer competitor to India in the conventional domain. The Pakistan Air Force’s remarkable success in the four-day war with India in May 2025 afforded unprecedented geopolitical and geostrategic relevance to Pakistan while denying the same to India.
Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the UN’s 15 December special report serves as a charge sheet against India, with undeniable facts and evidence. If India, as the upper riparian country, continues to unilaterally infringe the IWT, it not only compels Pakistan to take extreme action for the survival and well-being of its citizens but also sets a dangerous precedent for other upper riparian countries, such as China, to follow suit. Furthermore, India must realize that under the nuclear overhang and Pakistan’s qualitative ascendancy in the conventional domain, there exists absolutely no space for any level of war with Pakistan.
—The writer is a retired Air Officer from the PAF and currently serving at the DHA Suffa University (DSU), Karachi.
