Not too much should be read into the decision of the International Court of Arbitration’s award on jurisdiction, because India refuses to accept its jurisdiction. It almost seems that its staging of the whole Pehelgam incident, including the nuclear stand-off with Pakistan, was carried out so that it could suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, and thus oil out of obeying the ICA decision. It should be noted that, according to the ICA decision, India had already been avoiding all proceedings, and that too in a case that had been instituted in 2006. Clearly then, India’s suspension of the IWT was not a reaction to alleged terrorism, but long contemplated, because it could see court-room defeat staring it in the face. However, its plea that the suspension deprived the ICA of jurisdiction was rejected. Clearly, an ex post facto plea was not going to be entertained, but clearly, India wanted merely to muddy the waters.
The lack of jurisdiction is a common lawyer’s argument, but it does not work in cases where it is so clear. However, the award does not solve the problem of what is to be done when a country refuses to obey the law. The decision not only reflects the poorness of the legal advice India has received, but also its failed attempt to exercise a sort of exceptionalism that was previously only claimed by the USA and Israel. The solution lies with those powers with whose support India has been able to trample all over the law, and disregard all international norms. It started with Indian disregard of the Kashmiri right to self-determination, moved on to assassinations or attempted assassinations on foreign soil, and has now reached trying to wriggle out of a treaty it had itself signed.
Pakistan need not be too pleased over the award. Though it is a good beginning, it is but the beginning of a journey made needlessly long by the pusillanimity of the comity of nations. The journey itself is needless, being imposed on it by the Indian dishonouring of a Treaty into which it had entered voluntarily. Perhaps the only positive to emerge from the episode is that India is still showing itself ready to obey international law, even as it attempts to undermine it. It is no wonder that India is behaving like a small-town criminal lawyer, for after all, what is India but a small-town criminal?
