Indian NGO Urges UNHRC To Review Indus Waters Treaty

GENEVA-An Indian NGO has called for a review of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), arguing that changing water-security conditions in the region require the 1960 agreement between India and Pakistan to be reassessed from a contemporary human-rights perspective.

The Delhi-based NGO said access to water is closely linked to the rights to life, health, food, housing, dignity and development.

Referring to the UN recognition of access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a fundamental human right, the NGO said international water treaties should be implemented in a manner that strengthens, rather than constrains, states’ ability to meet their human-rights obligations.

The NGO said the IWT, despite being an important example of long-standing international cooperation, was signed more than six decades ago and that the region’s water-security environment has changed significantly since then. It cited population growth, climate change, glacier retreat, groundwater depletion and increasingly unpredictable river flows as factors that have transformed water-security challenges in the region.

The statement argued that contemporary treaty implementation should not prevent states from fulfilling their obligations towards communities under their jurisdiction. It said ensuring water security for communities should remain a fundamental priority and called a review of the IWT an imperative, also referring to the treaty’s present abeyance.

The NGO concluded that human rights and international cooperation are complementary and that transboundary water governance should place people, dignity and fundamental rights at the center.

The IWT was signed between India and Pakistan on September 19, 1960, concerning the utilization of the waters of the Indus system rivers.

India placed the treaty in abeyance following last year’s Pahalgam terror attack, saying it would remain so until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.

On August 31, India rejected an award issued by what it called the “illegally constituted” Court of Arbitration  concerning interim measures and the status of the IWT. India does not recognize the body and that its pronouncements would have no effect on India’s actions in connection with projects being undertaken on the Western Rivers, it said.

The Court of Arbitration had said 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. (IANS)