India has rejected an order from an international court in The Hague directing it to restore the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, according to a report by Al Jazeera.

The ruling emerges from arbitration over the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, the World Bank-brokered agreement that has governed sharing of the Indus river system between the two nuclear-armed neighbours for more than six decades. The tribunal's order called on India to bring the treaty back into force and resume its obligations toward Pakistan. New Delhi has refused.

What the treaty provides

The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the western rivers — the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — principally to Pakistan, while India receives the eastern rivers — the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. The treaty survived three wars between the two states and is widely cited as one of the most durable water-sharing arrangements in international law.

India had earlier moved to suspend its participation in the pact, escalating a long-running dispute that Pakistan referred to international arbitration. The Hague-based proceedings produced the order India has now spurned.

India's position

Indian authorities have declined to comply with the tribunal's directive, treating the decision as non-binding on the state. The rejection places New Delhi at odds with the arbitral mechanism the treaty itself establishes — a mechanism both states accepted when they signed the agreement in 1960.

The Al Jazeera report did not indicate whether India set out a detailed legal justification for non-compliance in formal pleadings, or whether it communicated its refusal through diplomatic channels alone.

Consequences for practitioners

For cross-border water-law and arbitration specialists, the development is significant on two fronts. First, it tests the enforceability of treaty-based arbitral awards where a powerful state party simply declines to comply, a recurring weakness of interstate dispute resolution under the Hague system. Second, it signals to practitioners advising clients on infrastructure, hydropower and agricultural investments in the Indus basin that contractual and regulatory risk assessments can no longer assume the treaty's stabilising framework. Counsel acting for investors, insurers and multilateral lenders in the region should factor the treaty's uncertain status into due diligence on any project dependent on cross-border water flows.

The refusal also raises questions about Pakistan's next procedural steps. Options under international law include renewed arbitration, proceedings before the International Court of Justice where jurisdiction exists, or diplomatic escalation through the World Bank as treaty guarantor. None of these routes guarantees enforcement against a state that rejects the outcome.

For now, the tribunal's order stands as an authoritative statement of legal obligation, and India's rejection stands as an equally clear statement of political refusal. The gap between the two defines the practical stakes of the dispute for the region's water security and for the credibility of treaty-based arbitration generally.