ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has started two legal processes to address Pakistan's concerns about two hydropower projects on the western rivers that India is building without following the Indus Basin Treaty. This ends a six-year deadlock.

The World Bank, which helped get the Indus Basin Treaty signed in 1996, had to take a complicated route because Islamabad and New Delhi could not agree on a single way for the treaty's dispute resolution mechanism to work, The Express Tribune said.

In a statement, the bank said, "In accordance with its responsibilities under the Indus Waters Treaty, the World Bank has made the appointments requested by India and Pakistan for the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants."  India had requested for appointment of a 'Neutral Expert', whereqas Pakistan opted for Court of Arbitration.

The World Bank says that in response, Michel Lino has been appointed as the Neutral Expert and Professor Sean Murphy has been chosen as the Chair of the Court of Arbitration. It also said that they will do their jobs as subject matter experts on their own and not in addition to any other jobs they may already have.

"A stay order can be given by the Court of Arbitration, but not by the Neutral Expert," Syed Meher Ali Shah, Pakistan's Indus Commissioner. "The World Bank did something when Pakistan and India couldn't agree on a single plan," he said.

Pakistan asked the World Bank in 2016 to help set up a Court of Arbitration to look into its concerns about how the two hydroelectric power projects were designed. India asked for a Neutral Expert to be chosen for the same reason.

The matter remained lingering for the past six years. As per reports,  the requests from both Pakistan and India came after the Permanent Indus Commission talked about the issue for a while.

In recent months, Naveed Kamran Baloch, who is Pakistan's Executive Director to the World Bank, also did a good job of getting the bank to agree with Islamabad's position.

Earlier, in 2018, the World Bank had asked Pakistan to stop asking for the Court of Arbitration.

"The World Bank continues to share the concerns of the parties who are going through both processes at the same time, which poses both practical and legal challenges," the statement said.

"It is  confident that the highly qualified experts appointed as Neutral Expert and as members of the Court of Arbitration will consider their jurisdictional mandate in a fair and careful way, as the Treaty allows them to do," it said.

The 1960 Treaty says that the Court of Arbitration can be set up if one or both of the parties "opine that the dispute is not likely to be settled through negotiation or mediation."

The two countries don't agree on whether or not the technical parts of these two hydroelectric plants break the Treaty.

India and Pakistan don't agree on how to build the 330-megawatt Kishenganga hydropower project on the Jhelum River and the 850-megawatt Ratle hydropower project on the Chenab River.

The Kishenganga project was started by India in 2018, and reports  said that work on the Ratle project started a few months ago. But if one party builds a project on its own, it comes with all kinds of risks. India was able to finish the Kishenganga project because the World Bank decided to wait six years to start the legal process. The Treaty calls these two rivers and the Indus the "Western Rivers." With a few exceptions, Pakistan can use the "Western Rivers" in any way it wants.

Under the Treaty, India can build hydroelectric power plants on these rivers, as long as they follow the rules set out in the Annexures. As a signatory to the treaty, the World Bank says its role is limited and procedural.

In particular, its role in "differences" and "disputes" is limited to naming people to play certain roles in Neutral Expert or Court of Arbitration proceedings when either or both of the parties ask for it.

In the past, the World Bank has said that it tried to find a peaceful solution and held a number of high-level meetings where different ideas were discussed. The World Bank has decided to start the process of choosing a Neutral Expert and a Chairman for the Court of Arbitration again on March 31, 2022.

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