Minister for Climate Change Musadik Malik delivered an impassioned address this week, framing the unravelling of the Indus Waters Treaty as a defining test case for water rights of downstream nations worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malik opened with the story of Iqbal Solangi, a Pakistani farmer whose family had worked the land for seven or eight generations before being wiped out by repeated flooding, first in 2010, then again in 2012, and once more in 2022. Solangi ultimately abandoned farming altogether and now works as a labourer in Karachi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGenerations of farming lost to water,\u201d Malik said, adding that Solangi\u2019s story was far from unique. He pointed to farmers in Bangladesh who depend on water flows for fishing and agriculture, and to a woman in the Sahel who walks roughly four miles each day for a single bucket of water after a nearby river receded, a consequence, he said, of upstream diversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malik argued that the common thread linking Pakistan\u2019s floods and droughts to similar crises along the Nile, the Tigris, the Mekong, and the former Aral Sea is not scarcity or excess of water itself, but the loss of control over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe danger is not just too little water or too much water,\u201d he said. \u201cThe danger is that someone else who is not you controls the tap through which your water is going to flow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citing data, Malik said flows at the Marala barrage had swung from 1,500 cusecs to 78,000 cusecs and back to 1,500 cusecs with no rainfall to account for the change. This was evidence, he argued, of upstream manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noted that roughly half of Pakistan\u2019s population, about 120 million people, depends on agriculture, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the country\u2019s GDP and effectively all of its food security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister also linked the dispute to climate change, noting that the country he holds responsible for controlling the water flow is also the world\u2019s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, tying its emissions to glacier melt and downstream flooding in Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He cited a toll of 6,000 deaths, 19,000 injuries or disabilities, and 40 million people displaced over the past 15 years due to flooding, along with an estimated 1.8 billion lost school days tied to prolonged displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malik rejected the characterisation that the Indus Waters Treaty, which has endured three wars between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, has been merely suspended or held in abeyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is simply that the treaty has been revealed,\u201d he said, \u201cand that’s all there is to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noted that Pakistan had taken the matter to international arbitration, which he said had issued a ruling placing limits on unilateral technical design changes to water infrastructure. He criticised the other party\u2019s refusal to accept the court\u2019s jurisdiction, calling it a dangerous precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDoes it mean tomorrow anyone can get up, any nuclear state can get up and say… I don\u2019t accept the world order, I don\u2019t accept treaties, I don\u2019t accept rights, I don\u2019t accept justice?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malik broadened his argument into a global appeal, arguing that if the precedent holds, no downstream country retains water rights, pointing to the Rhine as it flows into the Netherlands, the Danube\u2019s 19 riparian states, the Tisza, and the Nile as comparable cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is not Pakistan\u2019s case,” he said. \u201cThis is the case and test for water rights for all downstream billions […] who live downstream.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called for the international community to move beyond non-binding declarations and establish a binding covenant on water governance, comparable to existing frameworks for trade and nuclear non-proliferation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere must be a covenant which has political consequences, which has economic consequences, which has diplomatic consequences,\u201d Malik said. \u201cSo rise now or hold your peace forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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