“No Jurisdiction”: India Disapproves of the Hague Court’s Indus Waters Treaty Decision

The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, which ordered New Delhi to respect the water-sharing agreement with Pakistan, “has no jurisdiction on India’s sovereign decisions” and the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is still in effect.

The Court of Arbitration, the oldest permanent court for international disputes in the world, further declared that the pact between the two arch-rivals of the subcontinent remained completely in effect and that India had no grounds for terminating or suspending the accord.

The Indus Waters Treaty, which was signed in September 1960, was intended to regulate how India and Pakistan shared the Indus River system. India took a number of punitive actions against Pakistan, including suspending the water-sharing agreement, one day after the terror incident in Pahalgam on April 22 of last year, which resulted in 26 fatalities.

Reiterating its long-standing belief that “blood and water cannot flow together,” New Delhi has stated unequivocally that treaty activities will be halted unless Islamabad takes concrete, irrevocable steps to destroy international terror networks that operate out of its territory.

“This so called Court was constituted by the World Bank in patent breach of the terms of the Treaty and India categorically rejects its so-called award, just as it has firmly rejected all prior pronouncements by this illegaly constituted body” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

The statement emphasises that India has “consistently maintained that the very establishment of this alleged arbitral body constitutes a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty” and has never acknowledged the existence of this “illegally-constituted body” in legal terms. Due to concerns over the design of India’s Kishenganga and Ratle hydropower dams on the western rivers of the Indus system, Pakistan had requested arbitration.

From the beginning, India has opposed the arbitration procedure. New Delhi contends that such issues are technical and ought to be reviewed by a Neutral Expert in accordance with the treaty’s provisions. India claims that allowing a Court of Arbitration to look into the same concerns at the same time violates the agreement’s dispute-resolution procedures.

India argued that it “has refused to take any cognisance of its earlier pronouncements” and that it has never appeared before this body. “This so called court of Arbitration has no jurdisdiction whatsoever to pronounce on India’s sovereign decisions. Its pronouncements, now or in the future, will have no effect on India’s actions in connection with the projects being undertaken by India,” it said, asserting “India’s decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance remains in force“.