The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), placed in abeyance by India following the 22 April 2025 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, was never merely a legal instrument dividing six rivers between two nuclear-armed neighbours — it was a political compact whose true currency was trust, according to an analysis published in Pressenza – International Press Agency. The piece, authored by Dimitra Staikou, a Greek journalist and lawyer, argues that international commentary framing India's decision as the 'weaponisation of water' mistakes the consequence for the cause.

A Treaty Built on More Than Water

Staikou contends that while the global debate on Pakistan's water insecurity has focused on India's upstream position, that framing obscures a more fundamental reality. Despite inheriting one of the world's largest contiguous irrigation systems, Pakistan has, according to the analysis, been undermined by decades of inadequate domestic planning, chronic underinvestment, and weak water governance — factors largely independent of India's conduct.

The IWT, she argues, was exceptional not because of its technical provisions but because of the political will it embodied. India continued to implement the treaty through the wars of 1965 and 1971, the 1999 Kargil conflict, the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the Uri and Pulwama attacks. 'Few international agreements have demonstrated comparable resilience under such sustained geopolitical pressure,' Staikou wrote.

India's Decision: Culmination, Not Rupture

Staikou characterises India's move to place the treaty in abeyance after the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack as 'the culmination of a prolonged strategic reassessment, rather than a sudden departure from six decades of policy.' The framing is significant: it positions the suspension not as an act of aggression but as the endpoint of a trust deficit that had been accumulating across multiple bilateral crises.

Notably, the analysis does not adjudicate the legality or wisdom of India's decision. Instead, it raises a broader jurisprudential question: whether an agreement negotiated in an era of goodwill can continue to operate unchanged when the political conditions that sustained it have been fundamentally transformed.

The Broader Question of International Law

'The more consequential question is whether any international agreement can remain indefinitely insulated from the broader conduct of the states that are party to it,' Staikou wrote. She noted that for 65 years, the treaty endured because both India and Pakistan — despite wars, crises, and deep political differences — recognised that preserving one channel of cooperation served a larger strategic purpose. 'Today, that premise is under unprecedented strain,' she added.

The analysis argues that the discourse must move beyond the binary of 'water weaponisation' and engage with the harder question of how international law responds when the foundational trust underpinning a bilateral compact has eroded.

Pakistan's Domestic Water Crisis

Staikou's piece also highlights that Pakistan's water insecurity has domestic roots that predate and exist independently of any Indian action. Chronic underinvestment in water infrastructure, weak governance frameworks, and poor long-term planning have, according to the analysis, steadily undermined the country's ability to manage the water it already receives — a dimension that international commentary has, critics argue, largely ignored in favour of a simpler upstream-downstream narrative.

What Comes Next

With the IWT in abeyance, the legal and diplomatic path forward remains unclear. The treaty has no explicit suspension mechanism, and both countries have previously disputed its interpretation at international arbitration forums. Whether the current impasse leads to renegotiation, formal termination, or a return to implementation will depend, analysts suggest, on whether the political conditions that originally made the treaty possible can be reconstructed — a prospect that, for now, appears distant.