ISLAMABAD - The Hague based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Thursday accepted Pakistan's position, while rejecting India's objections to the assumption of jurisdiction by the international forum in the matter concerning the change of designs in Kishanganga and Ratle Hydro Electric plants.
Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has accepted Pakistan’s position that it had competence to determine a dispute between India and Pakistan regarding change of designs in 330MW Kishenganga Hydroelectric Plant (KHEP) and 850 MW Ratle Hydro Electric plants by India.
The court of arbitration rejected India’s objection to the assumption of jurisdiction by the international forum - PCA.
Now the international court will start hearing Pakistan’s claim on merit to the effect that above mentioned two projects’ designs are in breach of the Indus Water Treaty of 1961.
Pakistan was represented by a team of international experts assisted by a team of the Attorney General for Pakistan including Advocate Zohair Waheed and Advocate Leena Nishter. Barrister Ahmed Irfan Aslam acted as Pakistan’s agent in the PCA. Pakistan has serious objections on the design aspects of 330MW Kishenganga Hydroelectric Plant (KHEP) on the Jhelum River and 850MW Ratle Hydroclectric Plant (RHEP) on River Chenab in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK).
As per the officials documents available with The Nation, the questions on KHEP were discussed in seven meetings (in the period 2006 to 2010 and then in the period 2014 to 2015) while RHEP was discussed in four meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) (in the period 2013 to 2015). The questions could not be resolved in PIC and Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters (PCIW) declared failure of the PIC in resolving the issues and indicated that Pakistan would now take the matters to the third forum for resolution, i.e. Neutral Expert (NE) or Court of Arbitration (CoA). Subsequently, following the procedure in the Treaty, Pakistan invoked the disputes under Article IX of the Treaty in February 2016. As part of the procedure specified by the Treaty a meeting of the Secretaries of the two countries was held to resolve the issues which could not succeed and Pakistan submitted its request for arbitration to India on 19 August 2016. India had earlier indicated that it would seek resolution of the differences through the NE forum on 11 August 2016, while Pakistan had expressed its intention that it wanted to go to CoA for the same purpose in February 2016. On 6th September 2016 India had placed its request for appointment of NE with Pakistan and on 4th October 2016 with the World Bank.
Initially, the World Bank was indecisive which forum to form and indicated that it would form both forums for resolution of disputes. India initially insisted on referring the matters back to PIC to which Pakistan did not agree. India took advantage of the pause and completed the construction of KHEP and announced in July 2017 that it would carry out initial filling of its reservoir. Pakistan protested to the Bank as the Bank had been assuring Pakistan that construction was not going on and asked the Bank to end the pause and proceed, according to the Treaty, for completing the empanelment of the court. The Bank took up the matter with India who agreed to secretary level talks with Pakistan.
Two rounds of secretary level talks held between both the countries under the auspices of the World Bank but it failed to achieve any results as India rejected all the options presented by the World Bank, while Pakistan had accepted three options.
After receiving Pakistan’s response, the Bank again asked for India’s response who rejected all the four options as non-Treaty-complaint and asked for appointment of NE for resolution of the differences. On this, Pakistan asked the Bank that since all the options presented by the Bank have been rejected by India, Pakistan also asks for empanelment of the Court of Arbitration for resolution of the disputes.
Meanwhile, Pakistan said that it remained fully committed to the implementation of Indus Water Treaty, including its dispute settlement mechanism.
Foreign Office spokesperson while responding to media queries concerning the decision by the Court of Arbitration in the Hague on the question of its competence to hear Pakistan-India water disputes, said, “the Government of Pakistan is in receipt of the Award of the Court of Arbitration, addressing its competence and the way forward on the disputes between Pakistan and India concerning the Kishenganga and Ratle Hydroelectric Projects; and, wider questions of the interpretation and application of the Indus Waters Treaty.”
She said, “The Indus Waters Treaty is a foundational agreement between Pakistan and India on water sharing.