Indus Water Treaty: Challenges and Prospects

The growing water scarcity in India and Pakistan and emerging climatic and environmental changes to the Indus basin rivers system are causing a great stress on smoothing working of Indus water treaty 1960. Pakistan Being a lower riparian, facing the issue as to how to reinterpret the Indus Waters Treaty without giving up its water rights. The paper discusses that following the inbuilt constraints of a lower riparian, Pakistan need to adopt a multi-pronged strategy following water rationale to secure its water rights within the scope of the treaty. For this; effective implementation and enhancement of Article VI, VII, constructive diplomatic and political strategy,efficient water uses and sustainable water resource management in Indus-Pakistan.

The Indus and Mekong River Basins: Cooperation, and Dispute

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin are two of the most important transboundary water treaties signed between member states that have a history of disputes and wars. Due to the character of these relationships, often other bilateral issues impinge on water-related issues. In the case of India and Pakistan, voices to scrap the IWT in both countries are made chiefly because of their day-to-day bitter relationships. The treaty nevertheless remains in effect. The Mekong River Basin countries have had sour relationships in the past, and even after the agreement was signed in 1995 some political differences and disputes between them have remained. In both the Indus and Mekong basins, China is an important upper riparian. This article discusses the IWT and Agreement among the Mekong basin countries and examines the convergences and divergences between the two. It then analyses the role of China, as an upper basin to Indus and Mekong.

Pakistan’s Indus Diplomacy: From Troubled Waters to a Troubled Treaty

This article analyzes six major crises in Pakistan’s Indus diplomacy which shaped Pakistan’s water (in)security vis-à-vis upstream rival India on the Indus river system. These include first, when Pakistan failed to comply with the Standstill Agreement of 1947; second, when it signed the Inter-Dominion Agreement; third, when it acquiesced to the Nehru-Lilienthal-favored functional approach to the Indus water dispute in 1951; fourth, when the World Bank Proposal of 1954 apportioned exclusive use of the Western Rivers to Pakistan and the Eastern Rivers to India, but Pakistan delayed accepting the Proposal; fifth, when India secured rights on the Western Rivers in the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960; and sixth, several challenges that have emerged under the Indus Waters Treaty.

Sixty Years of the Indus Waters Treaty in the Era of Climate Change: A Look Ahead in Hydro-diplomacy and Treaty Law

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has now attained the milestone of 60 years (1960– 2020). It has become a global role model of an international legal mechanism for shared transboundary water resources. It has withstood all the strains, conflicts and lows in the bilateral relations between the riparian states of India and Pakistan. The current trends of global climate change in the Anthropocene age have exacerbated the risk of conflict over the shared international freshwater resources under the IWT. The receding glaciers, scanty snowfall, changing land system patterns, increasing demands for water to meet irrigation, industrial and domestic water demands, all have cumulatively made an impact on water availability in the shared Indus Basin. The study seeks to analyze the actual working of the IWT, efficacy of the in-built conflict resolution mechanism and the sheer tenacity to stay course especially on the part of the large upper riparian country, India. It, in turn, has become an exemplar in a treaty-based mechanism as well as in making hydro-diplomacy work for shared transboundary water resources in the era of climate change.

Contribution of General Principles of International Law in Progressive Development of Transboundary Aquifers

Man’s ruthless exploitation of natural resources means that we are housed in a resource-deprived world. The tug of war for meager resources has led to many conflicts between States that we witness today. At the heart of the whole debate on resource crunch is the issue of shared natural resources between States. International law has formulated several legal instruments to govern the shared transboundary resources, laws on transboundary aquifers being one. The objective of this paper is to unlock the general principles of international law that regulate the transboundary aquifers. In this regard, the paper has been apportioned into three sections. The first section sets the tone by detailing the provisions of the 2008 Draft Articles on the Transboundary Aquifers dealing with general principles. The second segment of the paper lays down the cardinal principles regulating transboundary aquifers, which range from sustainable development to the principle of good faith. The final portion delves into the Israel-Palestine dispute and the India-Pakistan Indus Waters Treaty in the context of transboundary aquifers.

Indus Water Treaty: Past Present and Future

Natural resources are fundamental and imperative for the existence and evolution of human civilizations. Water being most important scarce natural resource has become a contentious political issue in the world. South Asia being a less connected and conflict ridden region, Water related conflicts have been a dominant area of concern. At the time of independence, the boundary line between the two newly created independent countries, i.e. Pakistan and India was drawn right across the Indus Basin, leaving Pakistan as the lower riparian. Dispute thus arose between the two countries regarding the utilization of irrigation waters from existing facilities. The negotiations held under the World Bank, culminated in the signing of Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. The paper will examine the historical background of the treaty; the contentious developments which have arose over the years and will also discuss the Kashmir perspective on the treaty. The paper will also evaluate the present disagreeing arguments of both states over the treaty.

The Hydropolitics of the Indus Waters Treaty: A Critical Perspective

This paper discusses the hydro politics of the Indus Waters Treaty from a critical perspective. Many analysts and commentators from both India and Pakistan expressed displeasure with the treaty on the grounds of allotting more waters to the contending party. The Indian side is displeased with 'restricted' rights on western rights, whereas the Pakistani side laments the Indian rights on the western rivers as detrimental to its water security. Neutral experts consider the Indus Waters Treaty as an instance of successful water dispute resolution. However, the treaty's failure to account for future implications of the climate change for water supply and surging population for water demand as well as the absence of the other co-riparians of China and Afghanistan from the treaty and its failure to hardwire enough safeguards to ensure Kashmiri's needs are met from the waters add to the stresses and strains in the Indus Waters Treaty.

Indus Waters

In this chapter, I wish to offer a pre-history to the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. Since the period that this book covers ends at 1952, and since I wish to situate the discussions around the treaty as a means of implementing the partition, it becomes particularly important to understand the considerations that affected the early stages of the Indus negotiations. I argue that although the Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated under the auspices of the World Bank, was signed only in 1960, over a decade after the partition, many of its clauses had built upon the assumptions that had been formed by 1950. Indeed, by 1951, both the source of the problem—the fear that enough water would not be allowed to flow in to Pakistan from the canals that had been built before the partition—as well as its solution—that new canal networks would have to be developed in a way that would satisfy the separate requirements of both India and Pakistan—were already apparent. The discussions around Indus waters in the years that immediately followed the partition, offer valuable insights into how the implementation of the partition was conceptualized.