WATER WARS: CLIMATE CHANGE'S IMPACT ON THE INDUS WATER TREATY

Aslesha Dhillon, December 2016

ABSTRACT: Post the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, water has been a critically divisive issue between the two countries. As a result, the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) was created with the help of the World Bank to address and reduce the potential tensions that the Indus Water resources could cause. Pakistan is heavily dependent on the Indus Water Resources and is threatened by India’s strategic and geopolitical advantage as all the Indus Water originates or flows through India to reach Pakistan. While this treaty has been extremely successful and immune to all the wars since its inception in 1960, the recent conflict between India and Pakistan over the Uri Attack has opened the discussion on revoking or revising the treaty. This paper argues that it will not benefit India to use the IWT as a weapon of war. However, revisions are required in the treaty because it does not address the contemporary issues such as population and industrial growth, and, environmental and climatic pressures.