A growing number of scholars and lawyers are losing faith in the current system. Others say the law is not to blame, but the states that are supposed to uphold it
I
n late April, terrorists killed 26 civilians in the Indian town of Pahalgam, located in the mountainous border region of Kashmir. India swiftly blamed Pakistan for the attack, launched missile strikes towards it and announced that it was suspending the Indus waters treaty, effectively threatening to cut off three-quarters of Pakistan’s water supply.
Ahmad Irfan Aslam, a seasoned international lawyer who, until last year, was Pakistan’s minister for law and justice, water and natural resources, climate change and investments, watched the news unfold with a creeping sense of horror. India was raising the possibility that it could turn off the tap for 250 million people. This would violate not only the treaty, but also international laws around the equitable use of water resources.
Colleagues and friends approached Aslam for guidance about what could be done. That’s when it struck him: “I had this scary realisation that there isn’t much one can do today,” he told me. “We have witnessed a sudden erosion of multilateral institutions, of institutional norms. Everything seems uncertain.” Even if Pakistan were to bring a complaint to one of the institutions created to settle disputes between states – the UN security council and general assembly, the international court of justice (ICJ) or the permanent court of arbitration – whatever decision that resulted would almost certainly not be respected. “International law has always depended on the good faith of nation states,” Aslam said. “And that good faith has eroded.”
