India, Pakistan, and Indus Waters Treaty Modification

• India’s formal notice on August 30, 2024, underlines its concerns about meeting increasing domestic water needs sustainably.
• The notice aims to review and modify the treaty to address India’s specific concerns relating to altered population demographics, agricultural uses, and the need to accelerate the development of clean energy.
• The impact of persistent cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is impeding the smooth operations of the Treaty, undermining the full utilization of India’s rights in the Indus.
• The high threshold for modification in the treaty, as per Article XII, suggests that a duly ratified treaty concluded for that purpose between the two Governments is unlikely to be reached.
• India’s upper riparian view of optimal utilisation is opposed to Pakistan’s lower riparian understanding of uninterrupted flow.
• The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) allowed India to build hydropower projects on the Kishanganga, but added a caveat: India must maintain a minimum nine cubic metre a second flow.
• Ensuring optimum utilisation and maintaining minimum flow requires better management of the entire Indus Water Basin, resulting in enhanced water resource.
• The IWT does not have a provision relating to no harm rule, but it still binds both the riparians as a customary international law.
• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) identified conducting a transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA) as an essential requirement of customary international law for projects or activities with a potential for transboundary effects.
• The Rule relating to equitable and reasonable utilisation (ERU) of international watercourse can guide both riparians to meet unforeseen circumstances, such as the effects of climate change.
• The proposal to review should consider the provision in Article VII.1c which explicitly allows for cooperation in joint engineering projects along the river.