India-Pakistan water row deepens after Hague court ruling

For 65 years, even as India and Pakistan fought wars, severed diplomatic ties and traded nuclear threats, one agreement held: the Indus Waters Treaty, which governs the river system sustaining roughly 300 million people across the subcontinent.

Now, an international tribunal has ruled that it should have done no such thing – handing Pakistan an unexpected win in the two countries’ long and bitter rivalry.

On August 31, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that Delhi had no legal basis for suspending the water-sharing agreement, adding that India must also limit construction on the Ratle Hydroelectric Plant being built in Kashmir.

The court’s five-member panel was unanimous: none of the grounds India cited justified suspending or terminating the agreement.

It was a clean sweep for Islamabad, which brought the case after Delhi froze cooperation on the Indus and its tributaries – vital rivers that irrigate Pakistan’s agricultural heartland.