A 66-year-old World Bank-brokered water-sharing pact is at the centre of a legal and diplomatic clash after a Hague tribunal held it in force and India rejected the ruling.

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• The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in Karachi on September 19, 1960, after negotiations brokered by the World Bank.
• It gives India the Eastern Rivers and Pakistan primarily the Western Rivers, the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, with limited Indian use such as run-of-river hydropower.
• The treaty has a layered dispute-resolution system that includes a Neutral Expert and a Court of Arbitration.
• India announced on April 23, 2025, that it would hold the treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam terror attack, until Pakistan ends support for cross-border terrorism.
• On August 31, 2026, a Court of Arbitration at The Hague, administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, held that the treaty remains fully in force.
• The award found that India has no unilateral right to suspend the treaty and that none of the grounds it cited justified abeyance.
• The Court also issued an order on interim measures concerning the Ratle Hydro-Electric Plant on the Chenab River.
• India did not take part in the hearings and rejected the ruling the same day, calling the court illegally constituted and without jurisdiction.
• The separate Neutral Expert process on the Kishanganga and Ratle projects is still ongoing.
• At the UN General Assembly on September 25, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said any attempt to stop or divert Pakistan's share of Indus waters would be an act of war.
• On September 26, EAM Jaishankar's national statement stressed India's right to act against terrorism, and reports say it did not mention the treaty by name.