Hague Court Rules India Must Uphold Indus Waters Treaty With Pakistan
The Permanent Court of Arbitration has ruled that the decades-old Indus Waters Treaty remains fully in force, rejecting India's suspension of the agreement — a ruling New Delhi says it will not accept.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague has ruled unanimously that the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan "remains fully in force" and that India "must observe its obligations" under the agreement, rejecting every ground India had cited for suspending it, including sovereignty, terrorism concerns and climate change.
The dispute traces back to April 2025, when a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 civilians. India blamed Pakistan-linked militants and unilaterally suspended the six-decade-old treaty, which governs how water from six rivers is shared between the two countries and dates back to an agreement brokered during British colonial administration. Pakistan denied any involvement in the attack and took the dispute to the PCA in March 2026. The Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River, which flows from Indian-administered Kashmir into Pakistan, featured prominently in arguments over the hydropower projects the treaty regulates.
India rejected the ruling outright, calling the court "illegally constituted" and saying it had refused to take part in the proceedings. New Delhi said its suspension of the treaty would remain in place until Pakistan "credibly and irrevocably" ends its support for cross-border attacks, leaving the water-sharing dispute between the two nuclear-armed neighbors unresolved.