ISLAMABAD — The dispute over the Indus Waters Treaty has hardened into one of the most consequential flashpoints in Pakistan–India relations this year, after an international arbitration tribunal again ruled in Pakistan’s favour while New Delhi continues to hold the 1960 accord in what it calls “abeyance.”
On 15 May 2026, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague issued a supplemental award concerning “maximum pondage” — the volume of water India may store for run-of-river hydroelectric projects on the western rivers — in proceedings arising from disputes over the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. According to Pakistan’s Foreign Office, the award affirmed that “the Treaty places substantive limits on India’s water-control capability on the western rivers.”
Islamabad welcomed the ruling. The Foreign Office said pondage for a run-of-river plant “must be justified by real project needs, actual expected operation, site hydrology, hydraulic conditions, power system requirements,” adding that India “cannot justify increased pondage through imagined capacity, artificial load curves, unrealistic peaking assumptions,” per the official statement. Pakistan said the award also strengthened its review rights, requiring that India “must provide Pakistan with sufficient information and explanation to assess Treaty compliance.”
India rejected the award outright. Its Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said New Delhi “categorically rejects the present so-called award, just as it has firmly rejected all prior pronouncements of the illegally constituted CoA,” according to The Federal, which reported India considers the Court of Arbitration’s awards “null and void.” The Nation reported that the tribunal had earlier held India “cannot unilaterally suspend the agreement without mutual consent,” and that the framework “continued to bind both India and Pakistan.”
The two sides remain at an impasse over the treaty’s basic status. India announced it would hold the agreement in abeyance following the April 2025 Pahalgam attack in Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants — an allegation Islamabad denies — marking the first time the accord had been disrupted, the Nation reported.
The standoff sharpened further in late June. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Islamabad could go to war if it believed New Delhi’s moves on the Indus river system threatened the country’s water security, declaring: “The moment we feel our national security is under threat, and water is part of our national security, we will go to war [with India],” in remarks reported on 22 June 2026 by the Deccan Herald. Asif added that current developments did not yet warrant military action.
For now, the legal and political tracks point in opposite directions: Pakistan maintains the treaty is fully operational and binding and has invoked international mechanisms, while India insists the accord stays suspended and dismisses the arbitration as illegitimate — leaving the Indus the most volatile thread in an already strained relationship.
