Islamabad, Pakistan – A court of arbitration in The Hague has ruled that India cannot unilaterally suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, rejecting every argument New Delhi has used to justify holding the six-decade-old water-sharing agreement “in abeyance” since April 2025. In a unanimous decision issued on Monday, the five-member court found that the treaty “remains fully in force” and that India “must observe its obligations” under it, including those governing the design and operation of hydropower projects on rivers that flow into Pakistan. The ruling is the first time an international court has ruled on whether India’s decision to place the treaty in abeyance is legally valid.
India announced the decision in April 2025, after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, saying it would suspend the treaty until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” ends support for cross-border terrorism. Islamabad denies accusations that it was behind the attack, in which 26 civilians were killed by gunmen who first tried to determine the religion of their victims. India has rejected the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) – an intergovernmental court outside the United Nations system whose mandate New Delhi has accepted in other cases – in the Indus Waters Treaty case brought by Pakistan to The Hague.
India did not participate in any of the hearings that culminated in Monday’s ruling. It was quick to reject the verdict, leaving Pakistan with a legal and diplomatic victory whose actual worth will now be tested. After India placed the treaty in abeyance in April 2025, Pakistan applied in March 2026 for the PCA to rule on the treaty’s status, arguing it could not order India to comply with an agreement that might no longer be in force.
The court invited India to take part, but India did not respond. Hearings went ahead at the Peace Palace in The Hague from April 26 to 28, 2026, with only Pakistan present. The court examined every ground India has cited publicly: Sovereignty, Pakistan’s alleged unwillingness to renegotiate, cross-border terrorism, and changes such as demographic growth, clean-energy needs and climate change.
The court rejected all of them, finding that no rule of international law allows a state to unilaterally suspend a treaty on the grounds that it was a sovereign nation within its rights to walk away from a pact. Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar welcomed the ruling. In a statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs called the court “illegally constituted”.
Abeyance, it said, “remains in force” until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” ends support for cross-border attacks, a charge Islamabad denies. Legal experts say the ruling strengthens Pakistan’s position, even if it offers no obvious way to force India’s hand. The court has established that it has jurisdiction, and India signed the treaty,” he told Al Jazeera.
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