India Rejects 'Supplemental Award' By Hague-Based Court of Arbitration After Pakistan's Plea On Indus Waters

New Delhi: India has rejected the ‘supplemental award’ by The Hague-based Court of Arbitration in Netherlands which claimed that it is competent to rule on Pakistan’s case challenging India’s abeyance of the Indus Water Treaty.

Issuing a statement on the matter, the Ministry of External Affairs said, "Today, the illegal Court of Arbitration, purportedly constituted under the Indus Waters Treaty 1960, albeit in brazen violation of it, has issued what it characterises as a “supplemental award” on its competence concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”

India has never recognised the existence in law of this so-called Court of Arbitration, and India’s position has all along been that the constitution of this so-called arbitral body is in itself a serious breach of the Indus Waters Treaty and consequently any proceedings before this forum and any award or decision taken by it are also for that reason illegal and per se void.

The MEA further said, “following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India has in exercise of its rights as a sovereign nation under international law, placed the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism. Until such time that the Treaty is in abeyance, India is no longer bound to perform any of its obligations under the Treaty. No Court of Arbitration, much less this illegally constituted arbitral body which has no existence in the eye of law, has the jurisdiction to examine the legality of India’s actions in exercise of its rights as a sovereign.” 

The ministry further informed. “India, therefore, categorically rejects this so-called supplemental award as it has rejected all prior pronouncements of this body. This latest charade at Pakistan’s behest is yet another desperate attempt by it to escape accountability for its role as the global epicenter of terrorism. Pakistan's resort to this fabricated arbitration mechanism is consistent with its decades-long pattern of deception and manipulation of international forums.”

What Court of Arbitration said on Indus Waters matter 

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, the Court of Arbitration, shared a documents saying, “On 27 June 2025, the Court of Arbitration rendered a Supplemental Award on the Competence of the Court in an arbitration initiated by Pakistan against India over the Indus Waters Treaty.”

In these proceedings, Pakistan requested the Court of Arbitration to address the interpretation and application of the Indus Waters Treaty to certain design elements of the run-of-river hydro-electric projects that India is permitted by the Treaty to construct on the tributaries of the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, before those rivers flow into Pakistan, the document reads.

In the Supplemental Award, the Court considered the effect on the Court’s competence to address Pakistan’s request of the decision made by the Government of India on 23 and 24 April 2025 that the Treaty “will be held in abeyance with immediate effect”, the letter said.

“In a unanimous decision, which is binding on the parties and without appeal, the Court found that India’s position on “abeyance” of the Treaty does not limit the competence of the Court over this dispute, which the Court previously affirmed in its Award on Competence of 6 July 2023. The Court found that its competence cannot be affected by the unilateral decision of a Party taken after the initiation of the arbitral proceedings, regardless of whether India’s recent decision is characterized under international law as a suspension of the Treaty or otherwise. The Court further found that it has a continuing responsibility to advance these proceedings in a timely, efficient, and fair manner, notwithstanding India’s position on 'abeyance'”, it mentioned.

The court further determined that these findings apply similarly with respect to any competence that the ‘Neutral Expert’, appointed in separate proceedings commenced by India against Pakistan under the Treaty, otherwise possesses.