India: A legacy of Violating International Agreements/Treaties
Shireen M. Mazari
The downing of the unarmed Pakistan navy surveillance plane by India on August 10, 1999, was yet another example of Indias readiness to violate its international commitments made under Treaties and Agreements/Accords.
In this instance, India clearly violated the bilateral Pakistan-India Agreement of 1991 on Prevention of Air Space Violations and For Permitting Over Flights and Landings By Military Aircraft - specifically Articles 1 and 2(b):
Article 1: Henceforth, both sides will take adequate measures to ensure that air violations of each others airspace do not take place. However, if any inadvertent violation does take place, the incident will be promptly investigated and the Headquarters (HQ) of the other Air Force informed of the results without delay, through diplomatic channels.
Article 2.b: Unarmed transport and logistics aircraft including unarmed helicopters, and Air Observation Post (AOP) aircraft, wil! be permitted up to 1000 meters from each others air space including ADIZ.
However, India has been violating bilateral and multilateral treaties it is a party to since it came into being as an independent state in 1947 - where we take the term "to violate" as meaning "to fail to observe duly; to abuse; ..."
Violations of agreements at bilateral (Pakistan-India agreements) level
In 1947, India began its membership of the international comity of sovereign states by violating the agreed-upon Partition plan. It usurped the princely states of Hyderabad and Junagadh through the use of force and tried to do the same to Jammu and Kashmir. It also refused to hand over to Pakistan the agreed division of assets, both financial and military.
In 1972, India began violating the Simla Accord, relating specifically to the Line of Control almost as soon as it was signed. Despite a commitment by both Pakistan and India not to alter the LoC unilaterally and to refrain from using force "in violation of this Line", India crossed over the post-1971 LoC and set up 6-8 posts on Pakistans side of this Line.
[In order to initiate the process of the establishment of a durable peace, both Governments agree that: ... ii) In Jainmu and Kashmir, the LoC resulting from the cease-fire of December 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognized position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat or use of force in violation of this Line". Simla Agreement, 2nd July 1972]
In 1984, India not only violated the Simla Accord but also the Karachi Agreement of 1949 which defined the Cease Fire Line between Pakistan and India in Jammu and Kashmir as prevailing after the UN-brokered cease-fire of January 1949. Indias violation was termed Operation Meghdoot whereby it air lifted forces to occupy the Siachin Glacier and its two key northern passes - Bila Fond La and Sia La. The Karachi Agreement had stipulated unambiguously that beyond NJ 9842 the Cease Fire Line would run northward to the Chinese border - with Siachin Glacier forming an integral part of Baltistan in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. And this was reflected in international maps as well as in the fact that all mountaineering and trekking expeditions to the Siachin area had to apply to the Pakistan Government for permission.
In 1988, India violated the Simla Accord once more by crossing the LoC and establishing twelve posts in the unoccupied Qamar sector.
These almost habitual violations of the Sirnla Accord really call into question the validity of this Accord today.
India has also violated the Pakistan-India 1992 Joint Declaration on the Complete Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Through this Declaration, both sides declared that:
1. They undertake never under any circumstances:
a) to develop, produce or otherwise acquire chemical weapons;
b) to use chemical weapons;
c) to assist, encourage or induce, in any way, aim one to engage in development, production, acquisition, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons.
At the time, both Pakistan and India showed that they did not possess chemical weapons stockpiles. However, when India ratified the international Chemical Weapons Convention in 1996, it declared what were a large stockpile of chemical weapons! This showed that India had deceived Pakistan into signing the bilateral agreement on chemical weapons in the first place. So, according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), Pakistan could renege on this agreement. [Article 49 of the Vienna Convention states: "If a State has been induced to conclude a treaty by the fraudulent conduct of another negotiating State, the State may invoke the fraud as invalidating its consent to be bound by the treaty.]
The latest violation of a bilateral agreement with Pakistan by India has, of course, been of the 1991 Prevention of Air Space violations and For Permitting Over Flights and Landings By Military Aircraft agreement.
Nor has India only sought to negate bilateral commitments entered into with Pakistan, as and when it suited its interests. India has been equally cavalier with its multilateral treaty commitments.
Multilateral treaties violations by India
It transgressed the UN Charters letter and spirit when it invaded Goa in 1961 and expanded Indias geographic contours.
Its amalgamation of Sikkirn within the Indian state - from the status of Protectorate - certainly violated the spirit of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) which upholds the sanctity of international treaties and conventions and inter a/ia states that successor states (which India was after 1947 to British India. and gained its UN seat on that basis) inherit treaty obligations of the predecessor stare also.
Post the 1971 war with Pakistan. India violated the Geneva Conventions relating to the conduct of war, specifically the 1949 Prisoners of War Convention, on the issue of Pakistani POWs which it continued to hold on to long after the war had ended and Pakistan had returned the Indian POWs.
Article 118, Sec. II of Geneva Convention Ill states:
Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.
In the absence of stipulations to the above effect in any agreement concluded between the Parties to the conflict with a view to the cessation of hostilities, or failing any such agreement, each of the Detaining Powers shall itself establish and execute without delay a plan of repatriation in conformity with the principle laid down in the foregoing paragraph.
In either case, the measures adopted shall be brought to the knowledge of the prisoners of war.
By testing a nuclear device in 1974, India certainly violated the spirit of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 to which it was a party - even though it may not have violated the letter of this treaty. The preamble to the Treaty states that the signatories in:
Seeking to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of unclear weapons for all time, determined to continue negotiations to this end, and desiring to put an end to the contamination of mans environment by radioactive substances ...
Indias denial of the right of plebiscite to the Kashmiris is a constant violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Yet, India, as a member of the UN, has agreed to abide by the UN Charter which includes Article 25:
The members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with me present Charter.
India also violated the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (1982) during the height of the Kargil crisis when it held up a North Korean cargo ship that was carrying a cargo of 300 crates destined for Pakistan, at Kandla port, on its Western coast. The captain and crew were arrested and the cargo confiscated.
Article 24 of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea states:
1. The coastal State shall not hamper the innocent passage of foreign ships through the territorial sea except in accordance with this Convention. In particular, in the application of this Convention or of any laws or regulations adopted in conformity with this Convention, the coastal State shall not:
a. impose requirements on foreign ships which have the practical effect of denying or impairing the right of innocent passage; or
b. discriminate in form or in fact against the ships of any State or against ships carrying cargoes to, from or on behalf of any State.
And India also declared a blockade of sorts against Pakistan which is an act of war. Given that, India had not declared war on Pakistan, legally it had no ground on which to carry out any of these acts in peace time.
With such an abysmal track record on bilateral and multilateral agreements and treaties, one wonders how and why India continues to escape international censure. It really negates the relevance of international commitments and shows that international relations are premised purely on national interests and only where they coincide with more altruistic concerns will the latter be addressed/protected.
Interestingly, India itself has been very harsh with weak states with which it has forcibly imposed bilateral agreements to make them compliant to Indian policy goals. For instance, land-locked Nepal suffered the wrath of India when it purchased a few antiaircraft guns from China (a defensive weapon system in any case). Referring to the 1950 bilateral Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Nepal, which includes a clause relating to the regulation of arms imports by Nepal, India choked Nepal by withholding transit facilities.
This lends further credence to the belief that at the end of the day it is force and power (primarily military) that define international politics - even today. The notion that the post-bilateral global era is one of peace needs to be qualified, for it is an era of imposed peace where military might continues to hold sway. That is a lesson the Indian state has imbibed well - and imbibed it since the times of Nehru. After all, it was Nehru who laid the nuclear foundations of Indian militarism and, as an avid admirer of the Soviet Union, he opted to fashion the post-1947 Indian polity on similar lines - centralised planning and a massive weapons-industry infrastructure. He talked peace while planning Indias physical expansion through military means - be it the Princely states of British India or Goa or Sikkim.
And it is the same duality Indian leaders have adopted since. For instance, India seeks a global power role through a permanent seat in the Security Council even as it continues to violate the UN Charter with impunity. Because the major powers, as a result of their own politico-military and economic compulsions, continue to ignore Indias transgressions of its international commitments, India is fast becoming the global brat rather than the responsible global power it wants to.
http://www.issi.org.pk/comments/1c.htm
