The international seminar titled “Indus Waters Treaty: An Instrument of Peace and Regional Stability,” organised by the Institute of Regional Studies in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, is a timely initiative. At a moment when the future of the Indus Waters Treaty has become a subject of growing regional concern, informed public discussion is urgently needed. Water rarely receives sustained attention in Pakistan’s political discourse, yet for a country whose economy and food security depend heavily on agriculture, few issues are more consequential.
Nearly 80 per cent of Pakistan’s cultivated land relies on the Indus river system. Water is not simply another policy issue. It underpins agriculture, livelihoods, food production and public health. Any uncertainty surrounding the uninterrupted flow of the Indus therefore has implications that extend well beyond irrigation.
Unfortunately, mainstream media, particularly television talk shows, has devoted little attention to the legal and strategic dimensions of water security. Political controversies dominate the national conversation, while agriculture and water management remain on the margins. This imbalance has become even more striking since India announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, an action that has inevitably raised questions about the future of water sharing in South Asia.
Pakistan’s legal position is stronger than is often acknowledged. The debate is frequently framed as though everything depends on the treaty itself. In reality, the legal framework is broader. Even if one were to assume, purely for the sake of argument, that the Indus Waters Treaty did not exist, international law would still impose important obligations on an upstream state.
The principle is straightforward. International rivers are not treated as the exclusive property of the country through which they first flow. An upstream state cannot simply claim ownership of shared waters and decide, at its sole discretion, whether a downstream state should receive them. International water law has developed precisely to prevent such unilateral control over shared river systems.
The Indus Waters Treaty has survived wars, military crises and decades of political hostility because both countries recognised that water should remain insulated from conflict.
These principles are reflected in a range of international legal instruments, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, the Helsinki Rules, the Mar del Plata Action Plan, the Dublin Statement, Agenda 21, the United Nations Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While these instruments differ in their legal status, together they reflect a consistent body of international practice: shared watercourses must be managed in a manner that is equitable, reasonable and mindful of the rights of downstream states.
The noted international water law scholar Stephen C. McCaffrey, in The Law of International Watercourses, argues that no state may pursue its own economic interests in a manner that deprives another riparian state of the water on which its population depends. That principle reflects one of the central foundations of contemporary international water law.
For Pakistan, the issue is particularly acute. Water is essential for drinking, agriculture and ecological sustainability. International water law recognises all three interests. It does not permit an upstream state to use control over a shared river as an instrument of political pressure or coercion.
The human rights dimension is equally important. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly recognised access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a fundamental human right. In a country already facing growing water scarcity, any deliberate interruption of water flows would affect millions of people and would inevitably raise questions that extend beyond treaty law into the broader domains of international humanitarian and human rights norms.
India’s decision to suspend the treaty is itself open to serious legal challenge. The treaty contains no provision allowing either party to suspend or terminate it unilaterally. Yet even if one were to set that question aside entirely, the legal obligations governing international watercourses would not simply disappear. The absence of a treaty does not create an unrestricted right to stop the natural flow of an international river.
There is also an inconsistency in India’s broader legal position. In its engagement with China over transboundary rivers originating on the Tibetan Plateau, India has consistently maintained that upstream states cannot exercise absolute sovereignty over shared waters. It has argued that downstream states possess legitimate rights that must be respected. The same legal principle cannot reasonably be accepted in one context and rejected in another.
The Indus Waters Treaty has survived wars, military crises and decades of political hostility because both countries recognised that water should remain insulated from conflict. That principle deserves to be preserved. Shared rivers cannot become instruments of coercion without undermining not only regional stability but also the broader legal order governing international watercourses. The debate over the treaty is therefore about much more than a bilateral agreement. It is ultimately about whether established principles of international law will continue to govern shared natural resources or whether unilateral power will be allowed to replace them.
The writer is a lawyer and author based in Islamabad. He tweets @m_asifmahmood