The Indus Dispute at the International Law Association, 1956–58: Technocratic Narratives, Legal Arguments, and Political Entanglements

Abstract Through the 1950s, the World Bank mediated negotiations between India and Pakistan in the Indus dispute. Simultaneously, both countries contested the dispute at the “Rivers Committee” of the International Law Association (ILA). This paper shows the interstate politics bubbling under the surface of technical ILA discussions on transboundary waters and contextualizes their stakes in South Asian politics. The Bank and ILA both pursued peace by depoliticizing interstate disputes, but in different ways. While the ILA strived to defang politics by distilling international legal principles to regulate conflicts, the Bank wanted conflicting parties to devise technical solutions that maximized economic development. Prior legal norms mattered little in the Bank’s “development diplomacy” since law simply lent authority to negotiated settlements. Juxtaposing Bank and ILA records shows how political and technocratic modes of doing international law operated simultaneously in different forums, creating argumentative entanglements for India and Pakistan in the process.