India rejects the Hague award and keeps the Indus treaty in abeyance
The Court of Arbitration said the 1960 pact remains fully in force and limited work on Ratle. The MEA called the panel illegal, said India never appeared before it, and repeated that the April 2025 abeyance still stands.
New Delhi3 min read
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Hours after the Court of Arbitration sitting at The Hague ruled that the Indus Waters Treaty remains fully in force, the Ministry of External Affairs said India does not recognise the panel and will not treat the award as binding. The ministry's 31 August statement called the body "illegally constituted," said the World Bank created it in "patent breach" of the 1960 treaty, and repeated that India's decision to place the pact in abeyance after the 22 April 2025 Pahalgam attack "remains in force."
The court held, unanimously, that India could not suspend or terminate the treaty on its own. It treated "abeyance" as an attempt at suspension. It said none of the grounds India has cited justified that step under the treaty or under other rules of international law. It ordered India to observe the design and operating limits that apply to hydroelectric projects on the western rivers: the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab.
The interim measures are specific. India may keep working on the Ratle project on the Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir. It may not pour concrete above stated levels on the dam wall and the power intake until 90 days after a separate World Bank-appointed Neutral Expert rules on whether the design complies with the treaty. That expert decision is expected by July 2027. Pakistan had asked the court to freeze more of the work. The panel refused a full stop and wrote a height cap instead.
New Delhi's legal position has been consistent since the current arbitration began. India says disputes over the design of Ratle and Kishenganga belong with a Neutral Expert under Annexure F of the treaty, not with a court of arbitration under Annexure G. It says the World Bank was wrong to let both processes run. It has never appointed an arbitrator, never filed a memorial, and never sent counsel to The Hague. The MEA said on Monday that present or future pronouncements by the panel "will have no effect on India's actions in connection with the projects being undertaken by India."
The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, gave Pakistan exclusive use of the western rivers and India exclusive use of the eastern rivers, the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, with limited rights for each side on the other system. Pakistan's irrigation network still depends on the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab for most of the water that reaches its fields. Indian run-of-river projects on those rivers have been the long argument. Kishenganga is built. Ratle is the live construction fight.
Putting the treaty in abeyance in April 2025 was a political act after Pahalgam. It was also a legal experiment. The court has now said the experiment fails. India has said the court has no standing to say so. That leaves two documents on the table: an award that tells India to comply, and a ministry statement that tells the award to wait outside.
What happens on the river is the test. If the next concrete pour at Ratle stays under the cap, the award has a practical effect even if New Delhi denies the forum. If the pour goes above the cap, Pakistan will be back at the World Bank and in every capital that still treats the 1960 text as the rule. The Neutral Expert's 2027 calendar is now the nearest date that both processes share. Until then, India has restated abeyance, the court has restated the treaty, and the Chenab is still moving through a dam that both pieces of paper claim to govern.
