New Delhi has proposed renegotiating the 60-year-old water-sharing treaty amid the growing impacts of climate change and increasing water security concerns in Pakistan and India. In response, Islamabad has so far opposed the offer.
Renegotiation and settling the treaty are equally crucial for both Pakistan and India. Environmental experts added since building dams in both countries is at a push, increasing population growth and rising water demand, along with rapid swings between droughts and floods, access to water and its rights a significant concern.
The Indus Waters Treaty between Pakistan & India was signed in 1960, and the World Bank became a mediator in all the negotiations. The treaty divides the Indus River and its tributaries between neighbouring countries in South Asia and regulates water sharing. The treaty has survived skirmishes and wars. However, tensions over disputed territory in Jammu and Kashmir have seen diplomatic relations between the two foes deteriorate since 2019, intensifying a feud over water sharing.
Pakistan and India have dozens of hydroelectric projects operating or under construction in the Indus River basin. However, ongoing water disputes revolving around Pakistan opposing India’s 330 MW Kishanganga project on the Jhelum River and the 850 MW Ratle project on the Chenab River in the Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan seeks to resolve its concerns about the two projects at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) (a non-UN intergovernmental Organization) in Hauge, Netherlands. Meanwhile, India is urging its neighbour to enter into bilateral negotiations to amend the Indus Waters Treaty to prevent third parties from interfering in the conflict.
Under the current terms of the treaty, both countries can settle disputes through neutral experts appointed by the World Bank or in arbitral tribunals. Pakistan has chosen the latter course because it fears that some of India’s planned and commissioned hydroelectric dams will reduce the flow supplied to at least 80 percent of its irrigated agriculture.
However, India has said that hydropower design and construction methods are permitted under the treaty’s terms.
Analysts on both sides of the border say Pakistan will unlikely resume a bilateral agreement with India.
However, some researchers believe that the agreement needs to be revised to take into account the effects of climate change for the first time. Danish Mustafa, a professor of critical geography at King’s College London, says that this can benefit Pakistan because then it will be expected from India to consider the effects of global warming when designing hydropower projects and making decisions about water.
A 2019 study by Pakistani and Italian researchers in the journal Nature found that climate change is “rapidly eroding trust” between the two countries and that the treaty does not include “issues related to climate change and watershed sustainability.”
However, Islamabad-based environment and development analyst Ali Tauqeer Sheikh said the best way to ensure water cooperation and regional stability is the increasingly worrying pressures of climate change.
Instead of “acting as victims of climate change,” the two countries should work together to develop policies that benefit both sides and address climate-related concerns, from melting glaciers to more intensified rainfall in the region; hence should update the treaty accordingly.
Last month, an arbitral tribunal began a process in which Pakistan sought to resolve its water dispute. Pakistan is concerned that two hydroelectric projects of India will affect the flow of water in the Jhelum River and one of its tributaries, as well as water storage in the Chenab River.
India has boycotted the case and has already offered to appoint an impartial expert, accusing Pakistan of prolonging the complaint process. Delhi sent a notice to Islamabad asking it to agree to amend the Indus Waters Treaty within 90 days to ensure that the continued dispute between the two countries is managed without external interference.
Sheikh further said neither country can unilaterally withdraw from the treaty because there is no exit clause, and both countries must reach a practical solution.”
The Pakistan Institute of Policy Studies said in 2017 that the Indus Waters Treaty should be seen in the light of other international agreements, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, which Pakistan and India signed.
Ashok Swain, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and head of the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO, said: There is a minimal option for the optimal use of water resources of river systems in the treaty, especially in times of climate change.