FROM a hydrological perspective, the water distribution and management plan of the Indus Waters Treaty is one of the most unscientific strategies when it comes to the world’s large transboundary river basins. Consequently, it has not been able to succeed — legally, environmentally, economically or politically. Before the damage already done becomes irreversible, the IWT must be re-evaluated through the lens of rigorous science.

The IWT is unique in the sense that it was devised to divide the waters of the Indus basin between Pakistan and India at a time when no country was facing a water shortage in the basin area, which was divided by a political boundary in 1947. The Standstill Agreement of 1947, signed between Pakistan and India to keep the Indus basin waters flowing the way they were before the political division, is a testimony to this fact.

However, after the expiration of the agreement in 1948, East Punjab began shutting down the canals that flowed into Pakistan from the headworks now under its control — not because India was running short of water but out of political malice — thus depriving the civilian population of Punjab (Pakistan) of life-giving water supplies for irrigation. This constituted a war crime under international law, which stipulates: “It is … prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless, for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and........

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