Institutional Silence and Norm Erosion: The World Bank and the Indus Waters Treaty Crisis
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https://doi.org/10.66871/trf-j.v1i4.240##semicolon##
Indus Waters Treaty; World Bank; norm erosion; custodial normativity; hydropolitics; In dia-Pakistan##article.abstract##
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, brokered by the World Bank, is routinely cited as a rare example of cooperation that survived armed conflict between its signatories. India’s decision of 23 April 2025 to hold the treaty ‘in abeyance’, and its rejection of the Court of Arbitration’s rulings through August 2026, test this reputation.
This paper examines what the World Bank’s declared role as a ‘facilitator’ means for the treaty’s normative authority. Drawing on Finnemore and Sikkink’s norm life cycle, Wendt’s account of intersubjectivity, and Sandholtz’s work on norm violation, it argues that the Bank’s procedural minimalism contributed to the de-socialisation of an internalised norm, although the treaty’s institutional machinery had begun to decay before 2025.
A realist interpretation is assessed as a rival explanation. While it accounts for the timing of India’s decision, it does not adequately explain either the six decades of restraint or the gap between the declared abeyance and subsequent operational conduct.
Statements by the Indian and Pakistani governments, as well as by commentators from both countries, are treated in this paper as claims to be reported and analysed rather than as established findings. The analysis is confined to the treaty’s institutional and normative record and takes no position on the factual or political claims advanced by either side.
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