One important approach that can be adopted in understanding the disproportionate nature of the conflicts arising from the Indus, Nile, and Mesopotamian basin river systems in relation to their purely economic value is the theory of hydraulic civilizations, which was developed by Karl Wittfogel as an approach that can be used in explaining societies where politics and economics have been built around major water control systems. These rivers are more than just sources of water, as they have been at the center of agriculture and culture for thousands of years.
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which awarded ownership of the western rivers to Pakistan and of the eastern rivers to India, has been extremely resilient and has survived two wars fought between the parties to the treaty, something that few treaties can claim. Nevertheless, India’s clear intent to question the dispute resolution mechanism provided by the treaty, and specifically Indian hydroelectric power plants constructed on the rivers Kishanganga and Ratle that Pakistan alleges to contravene non-obstruction provisions of the treaty, form the crux of recent disputes. From the Pakistani perspective, the problem under consideration is not a mere technical dispute, but an attempt to reinterpret an already agreed upon document outside its own procedure. The distinction is justified in Pakistan by the doctrine of estoppel, according to which India’s 55 year old practice of compliance with decisions of the neutral expert cannot be questioned.
What is more important in an analytic sense is not the legality of such claims, which is outside the scope of this article, but the multi-level approach adopted by Pakistan to bolster its position. As far as law is concerned, this requires making the decision of the Neutral Expert the sole legal option to make sure that India will not be able to find another location that suits it better. What concerns diplomacy, this implies putting pressure on the World Bank, another signatory of the agreement, and on major countries that can influence it. A useful example could be cited in the dispute that has emerged between Egypt and Ethiopia concerning the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile River. This is an example of how Egypt, through its civilizational claims, has succeeded in transforming rhetoric into legally binding claims.
However, one must exercise great care when applying this particular point of comparison. In both cases, there are asymmetrical claims by downstream countries against upstream developments, and although this comparison serves an analytical purpose, it is essential that it does not detract from the point that India’s own stance, which centers on sovereign rights to build infrastructural developments in rivers on Indian Territory, would be equally legalistic in nature. Any analysis of the future course of the dispute will depend on how well either side succeeds in institutionalizing their respective narratives in international forums.
