Pakistan on Friday welcomed the Supplemental Award issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Indus Waters Treaty case, noting India cannot unilaterally suspend the accord.
In a statement, the Government of Pakistan said the Court had affirmed its competence to rule on the issue, adding India’s unilateral action cannot deprive either the court or the neutral expert of their competence to adjudicate the issues before them. “Pakistan looks forward to receiving the court’s award on the first phase on the merits in due course following the hearing that was held in Peace Palace in The Hague in July 2024,” it added.
The statement emphasized that Pakistan and India must resume meaningful dialogue, including on the application of the Indus Waters Treaty. In this regard, it said, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had already expressed Pakistan’s willingness to engage in a meaningful dialogue with India on all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, water, trade and terrorism.
In April, after an attack in India-held Kashmir’s Pahalgam killed 26 people, Delhi alleged Islamabad’s involvement without any evidence and announced a slew of “retaliatory” measures. Apart from downgrading diplomatic ties, it said it was holding “in abeyance” the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan. The situation culminated in India targeting civilian infrastructure in Pakistan, prompting retaliatory strikes that brought the two states to the brink of war before the U.S. brokered a ceasefire between the nuclear-armed states.
The Indus Water Treaty governs the division of waters from rivers that flow downstream from India into the Indus River basin in Pakistan. Under the deal, India has the right to waters of Beas, Ravi and Sutlej, while Pakistan has the right to the waters of Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. Signed in 1960, it was brokered by the World Bank and does not allow for either country to make any unilateral changes.
The Court of Arbitration also issued a Supplemental Award reaffirming its jurisdiction in the ongoing arbitration initiated by Pakistan against India under the Indus Water Treaty. The unanimous judgement, binding on both parties without appeal, stresses that India’s unilateral decision to place the accord in abeyance has no bearing on the Court’s competence to adjudicate. It specifically cites an ongoing request from Pakistan to address the interpretation and application of the accord to certain design elements of the run-of-river hydro-electric projects that India is permitted to construct on the tributaries of the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab before they flow into Pakistan.
“The Court further found that it has a continuing responsibility to advance these proceedings in a timely, efficient, and fair manner, notwithstanding India’s position on ‘abeyance’,” it said. It further determined that these findings apply similarly with respect to any competence that the Neutral Expert, appointed in separate proceedings commenced by India against Pakistan under the Treaty, otherwise possesses.
India’s response
India “categorically rejected” the supplemental award by the Court of Arbitration on its Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects, claiming it “never recognized” the Court of Arbitration.
“India has never recognized the existence in law of this so-called Court of Arbitration, and India’s position has all along been that the constitution of this so-called arbitral body is in itself a serious breach of the Indus Waters Treaty and consequently any proceedings before this forum and any award or decision taken by it are also for that reason illegal and per se void,” said the Ministry of External Affairs.
“Today, the illegal Court of Arbitration, purportedly constituted under the Indus Waters Treaty 1960, albeit in brazen violation of it, has issued what it characterizes as a “supplemental award” on its competence concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” it said, describing the Court’s declarations a “charade at Pakistan’s behest.”