{"id":7066,"date":"2026-09-10T04:52:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T04:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=7066"},"modified":"2026-09-10T04:52:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T04:52:22","slug":"international-courts-rule-that-india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2026\/09\/10\/international-courts-rule-that-india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERNATIONAL COURTS RULE THAT INDIA MUST UPHOLD WATER-SHARING TREATY WITH PAKISTAN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan-arbitration-court-says-2026-08-31\">https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan-arbitration-court-says-2026-08-31<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April 2025, India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty because of suspicions that Pakistan helped kill 26 civilians. Through this, India is withholding water that supplies 80% of Pakistani farms. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruled the treaty to be intact as India had no justification for suspension. India then said that the court had \u201cno jurisdiction,\u201d and they\u2019d be continuing with their current projects in the Kashmir region without regard to Pakistan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Class Connection:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article relates to HL themes like borders, environment, and health. This also relates to hard power, interdependence, and legitimacy (specifically of international governing bodies). This article has these connections because India\u2019s operating in Kashmir, where governance has been disputed. It also relates to environment and health because withholding water ruins the farmland and deprives the civilians of drinkable water. The article also relates to hard\/resource power because India is using their resources as leverage to overpower Pakistan, and it connects to interdependence because of the idea that the treaty was mutually beneficial. This article also ties back to international legitimacy because India claims that the PCA has no right or \u201cjurisdiction\u201d to make any decisions that impact their economy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Analysis:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article isn\u2019t just important. It\u2019s concerning. It\u2019s clear that there\u2019s regression away from any possibility of stability in the South Asian region. Pakistan might\u2019ve helped kill those civilians, but if India retaliates even though Pakistan denies it, <em>India<\/em> is the one provoking Pakistan. This could eventually lead to an escalation in violence if Pakistan fights back and sets off a chain reaction. If Pakistan decides to attack India, it would probably start out as a destruction of Kashmiri infrastructure (which is detrimental to India\u2019s goal of harnessing hydroelectric power and expanding electricity accessibility).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another aspect that might be important to think about is the collateral damage. China could easily become collateral damage if a full-scale conflict broke out and the violence infiltrated the shared borders, thereby reducing China\u2019s ability to access the Arabian Sea. Ultimately, the most likely victims are the citizens of both countries. For example, and this can be applied both ways, India has the capability to bottleneck the water supply by diverting the water from the Chenab river to one of theirs, flush out their own rivers and add sediment to Pakistan\u2019s waters, and not give flash flood warnings (which rely on India\u2019s rivers as signals).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The main driving force behind interdependence legitimacy (in their own governments, in the relationship between them, and in the intl. governing bodies). If India is willing to disobey the PCA under the idea of sovereignty and the fact that no international court has the authority to enforce decisions, then what other lines are they willing to cross in order to prove a point and establish themselves as a militarily strong power?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, I predict that in the next year or so we will start to see water and other resources be used more aggressively as leverage (in addition to close alliances like Pakistan-Saudis, India-Russia, etc.).&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan-arbitration-court-says-2026-08-31 Summary: In April 2025, India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty because of suspicions that Pakistan helped kill 26 civilians. Through this, India is withholding water that supplies 80% of Pakistani farms. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruled the treaty to be intact as India had no justification for suspension. India then said that the court had \u201cno jurisdiction,\u201d&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2026\/09\/10\/international-courts-rule-that-india-must-uphold-water-sharing-treaty-with-pakistan\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7067,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7066\/revisions\/7067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}