‘No jurisdiction’: India rejects international court’s order on Indus Water Treaty

India on Friday rejected the Hague-based Court of Arbitration’s decision on the “abeyance” of the Indus Waters Treaty and said that the court has “no jurisdiction whatsoever to pronounce on India’s sovereign decisions”.

The Court of Arbitration concluded that India’s decision on “abeyance” of the Treaty was not permissible under the Treaty or other applicable rules of international law. “The Court found that none of these grounds could justify suspension or termination of the Treaty. Accordingly, the Indus Waters Treaty remains fully in force, and India must observe its obligations under the Treaty, including those relating to the design and operation of its hydro-electric projects on the Western Rivers,” the court said.

“India has never recognised the existence in law of this illegally-constituted and so-called Court of Arbitration, and has consistently maintained that the very establishment of this alleged arbitral body constitutes a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty. Accordingly, India has never appeared before this body and has refused to take any cognisance of its earlier pronouncements,” the MEA said.

It said that “this so-called Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction whatsoever to pronounce on India’s sovereign decisions. Its pronouncements, now or in the future, will have no effect on India’s actions in connection with the projects being undertaken by India … India’s decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance remains in force”.

More than a year ago, after the Pahalgam terrorist attack in April, India decided to put the Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance”. The decision flows directly from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) decision of 23 April 2025, which states that “the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”.

India has consistently maintained that the so-called Court of Arbitration

(CoA) was illegally constituted and has never recognised its legal

existence or jurisdiction. MEA had earlier said that the CoA’s proceedings are “illegal and per se void, and any proceedings, awards or decisions issued by it are null and void and without legal effect”.

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 27 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting and writing explainers and analysis on foreign affairs for about 19 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He won the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award, 2023, for the second time for his reporting of the Oct 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More