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August 19, 2016 6:30 pm JST

Commentary

Significantly, the total installed hydropower-generating capacity in operation or under

construction in Indian Jammu and Kashmir does not equal the size of a single mega-dam
that Pakistan is currently pursuing, such as the 7,000-megawatt Bunji Dam or the
4,500MW Bhasha Dam. Indeed, while railing against India's run-of-river projects,
Pakistan has invited China to build mega-dams in the Pakistani part of Jammu and
Kashmir, itself troubled by discontent, including against the growing Chinese footprint
there.
History of disputes
Pakistan's latest decision to seek international arbitration over two Indian projects has
followed two other cases in the past decade where it triggered international intervention
by invoking the treaty's conflict-resolution provisions and yet failed to block the Indian
works. Treaty provisions permit the establishment of a seven-member arbitral tribunal to
resolve a dispute, or the appointment of a neutral expert to settle a disagreement over a
hydro-engineering issue. When Pakistan's minister for defense, water and power,
Khawaja Asif, announced on Twitter recently that his country has decided to seek a "full

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court of arbitration," most of whose members would be appointed by the World Bank,
India contended the move was premature as the treaty-sanctioned bilateral mechanisms
had not been utilized first.
Make no mistake: Pakistan, by repeatedly invoking the conflict-resolution provisions to
mount political pressure on India, risks undermining a unique treaty. Waging water war
by such means carries the danger of a boomerang effect.
Any water treaty's comparative benefits and burdens should be such that the advantages
for each party outweigh the duties and responsibilities, or else the state that sees itself as
the loser may fail to comply with its obligations or withdraw from the pact. If India begins
to see itself as the loser, viewing the treaty as an albatross around its neck, nothing can
save the pact. No international arbitration can address this risk.
When China trashed the recent tribunal ruling that knocked the bottom out of its
expansive claims in the South China Sea, it highlighted a much-ignored fact: Major
powers rarely accept international arbitration or comply with tribunal rulings. Indeed,
arbitration awards often go in favor of smaller states, as India's own experience shows. For
example, an arbitral tribunal in 2014 awarded Bangladesh more than three-quarters of
the 25,602 sq. km disputed territory in the Bay of Bengal, even as it left a sizable "gray
zone" while delimiting its maritime boundaries with India. Still, India readily accepted
the ruling. However, nothing can stop India in the future from emulating the example of,
say, China.
To be sure, Pakistan and India face difficult choices on water that demand greater
bilateral water cooperation. The Indus treaty was signed in an era when water scarcity
was relatively unknown in much of the Indian subcontinent. But today water stress is
increasingly haunting the region. In the years ahead, climate change could exacerbate the
regional water situation, although currently the glaciers in the western Himalayas -- the
source of the Indus rivers -- are stable and could indeed be growing, in contrast to the
accelerated glacial thaw in the eastern Himalayas.
A balance between rights and obligations is at the heart of how to achieve harmonious,
rules-based cooperation between co-riparian states. In the Indus basin, however, there is
little harmony or collaboration: Pakistan wages a constant propaganda campaign against
India's water hegemony and seeks to "internationalize" every dispute. Yet, in New Delhi's
view, Pakistan wants rights without responsibilities by expecting eternal Indian water
munificence, even as its military generals export terrorists to India.

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This rancor holds a broader lesson: Festering territorial and other political disputes make
meaningful intercountry cooperation on a shared river system difficult, even when a
robust treaty is in place.
Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Water, Peace, and War:
Confronting the Global Water Crisis" and "Water: Asia's New
Battleground," which won the Bernard Schwartz Award.

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