By launching two parallel procedures to adjudicate on Pakistan’s objections to a couple of hydropower projects being implemented by India on the rivers allocated to it under the Indus Water Treaty, the World Bank has only exposed its naivety. The move is legally untenable as it goes beyond the dispute settlement norms mooted in the treaty brokered by the World Bank in 1960. Responding to Pakistan’s allegations regarding India’s hydro-electric projects – Kishanganga on the Jhelum and Ratle on the Chenab – in Jammu and Kashmir, the World Bank has chosen to set up a court of arbitration (as demanded by Islamabad) as well as a neutral expert (as suggested by New Delhi) to operate concurrently. What defies logic is that the World Bank has done so despite realising that simultaneous adjudication by two set-ups might result in incongruous outcomes and, thereby, exacerbate the problem rather than resolving it.
According to the dispute settlement rules laid down in the Indus treaty, questions of a technical nature have to be first addressed by the bilateral Permanent Indus Commission. If this body is unable to settle it, the matter can go to a neutral expert appointed by the World Bank on the request of either party. If the neutral expert so decides, the matter can be referred to a court of arbitration for final resolution. By not following this procedure, the World Bank has, obviously, defied the Indus Water Treaty norms, for no sound reasons or foreseeable gains.
Pakistan’s real motive for concocting fresh accusations regarding Kishanganga, which was cleared by the Hague-based International Court of Arbitration in 2013, and dragging the Ratle hydropower project into the dispute as well appears to go beyond water-related concerns. It seems an upshot of the noises made by New Delhi about weighing its water-sharing options under the treaty after the terrorist attack on an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the probability of India actually reopening the Indus Water Treaty is slim as the move might boomerang. In any case, the treaty is one of the most successful international water-sharing pacts that has survived several full-fledged wars and warlike situations between the two countries though the agreement is inherently flawed and tilted in favour of Pakistan. Apparently, Islamabad does not seem to have learnt any lessons from its past misfired attempts to raise similar issues. Almost all the disputes, including the one about the Baglihar project, put up for international arbitration have been settled in favour of India. Even in the case of the technical objections filed against the Kishenganga project in the past, the neutral experts upheld the Indian position, suggesting only minor amendments in the project design, which India agreed to carry out.
The noteworthy point that is often disregarded is that the Indus Water Treaty allows India to not only put up run-of-the-river projects on the three west-flowing rivers – Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – allotted to Pakistan but also permits creation of water storage on these rivers of 3.6 million acre feet for drinking, irrigation and flood control purposes. However, much of the permitted water holding as well as power generation capacity remains unharnessed. It would, therefore, be unwise for Pakistan to keep raking up old water rows and cooking up new ones. The World Bank, too, should take only well-advised steps to facilitate dispute resolution rather than needlessly complicating the issues.