INDIA’S claim that it has placed the Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance” is not just provocative, it is legally meaningless. As Pakistan’s Indus Waters Commissioner has noted, international law does not recognise such a concept. Treaties are either in force, suspended by mutual consent, lawfully terminated, or breached. What New Delhi has tried to invent is a legal grey zone that does not exist. The IWT, brokered by the World Bank in 1960, is designed to ensure that water disputes between Pakistan and India are insulated from political crises. It endured the 1965 and 1971 wars, the Kargil conflict, and decades of hostility........

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