Signed in 1960, and brokered by the World Bank, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) governs how India and Pakistan share the Indus basin’s rivers. The treaty allocated three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej) to India and three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab) to Pakistan. India was allowed some use of the waters of western rivers while they pass through Indian territory, but only for limited purposes, and only within strict conditions.
For more than six decades, the treaty stood the test of time and remained a rare example of cooperation between two adversarial states, until last year. An attack in Pahalgam, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K), claimed the lives of 26 people on 22nd April 2025. India attributed it to Pakistan without producing any evidence and, one day later, put the treaty in abeyance, declaring that it would remain so until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.” Pakistan offered to cooperate and participate in a neutral, transparent and credible investigation but India refused.
The word “abeyance” appears nowhere; not in the Indus Waters Treaty, not in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (“VCLT”), and nowhere in the wider body of international law. The word was selected for a particular reason, so as to exclude the ones that carry legal consequences. The treaty contains no suspension clause; Article XII permits modification and termination only by mutual consent. Even beyond the treaty, international law offers India no escape from its obligation. The principle of pacta sunt servanda is the cornerstone of international law, a rule which is also contained in Article 26 of the VCLT: a treaty once concluded is binding on the parties and is to be carried out in good faith. This very principle is binding on India as customary international law, whether or not it is a party to the Convention. By putting the treaty in abeyance, India is doing precisely what that rule forbids.
Under the VCLT, a state may terminate or suspend a treaty on narrow grounds, such as a material breach by the other party, impossibility of performance and a fundamental change of circumstances. None of these fits here. An attack of this kind, however grave, is not a breach of a water sharing treaty. A material breach means breaching the treaty’s terms, not an unrelated wrong however serious, and Pakistan has done no such thing. Performance has not become impossible as the rivers still flow. And the “fundamental change” threshold is deliberately near impossible to meet. Having no lawful door to walk through, India simply invented one.
International law does allow a state to respond when another has committed a wrong; these responses are called countermeasures. India has not labelled its action a countermeasure but tying the “abeyance” to Pakistan’s alleged support for terrorism is that argument in all but name, and not naming it may be another careful choice. The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility set out when a countermeasure is allowed. The wrongful act must first be attributable to the state it is aimed at, and India has offered no proof that it is. A countermeasure must also be proportionate, and it can never target what a population needs to survive. Water that nearly 90% of Pakistan’s crops depend on is exactly that. India has already stopped sharing the flood and release data the treaty requires; whoever controls the timing of the water controls whether a field is flooded at sowing or left dry at harvest.
Despite India’s attempt to walk away, the treaty can end only by mutual consent, and its action has no basis in law, so the treaty never stopped being in force. India is not in some undefined middle ground; it is in breach of a binding treaty right now. And even if India were to drop the pretence and call the treaty dead, it would still not be free to do as it pleases. The duty of an upstream state not to cause harm to those downstream does not come only from this treaty; it exists in customary international law on its own. The Court of Arbitration, already hearing a dispute under the treaty, has held that the treaty remains in force despite India’s decision to place it in abeyance. So there is no version of this in which India is not bound.
India framed its move as a response to Pakistan’s alleged wrongdoing, but the law does not read it that way. Strip away the word “abeyance” and what is left is a state that has walked away from a binding treaty, tied it to a grievance the treaty was never built to carry, and weaponised the water millions depend on to survive. This is an outright breach of international law. The treaty binds India today exactly as it did in 1960, and will keep binding it until both sides agree otherwise.
Khadija Almus Khanum holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree in Shariah and Law from the International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Previously, Khanum served in the International Disputes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General of Pakistan. Khanum currently works as a Research Associate in International Law at IPRI. Research interests include International Humanitarian Law, International Water Law, Climate Law, and the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes.
