Assessing the Efficacy of the India-Pakistan Agreement on Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations/Facilities

Nasir Mehmood

Source Link

Introduction

Fighting around nuclear power plants during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and debates about military strikes on Iran’s controversial nuclear program have highlighted resurging temptations to treat nuclear facilities as regular military targets. Attacks on nuclear sites would pose strategic risks as well as grave humanitarian and environmental consequences. These threats also highlight the limitations of relying on International Humanitarian Law (IHL), norms, and opponents’ self-restraint to spare nuclear facilities during international conflicts.

India and Pakistan, known for their enduring rivalry, signed an innovative 1988 agreement prohibiting attacks against each other’s nuclear installations and facilities.1 For the last three and a half decades on the 1 st of January each year, the two rivals have exchanged the coordinates of sites covered by the Non-Attack Agreement without discriminating between those used for peaceful and military purposes.2 The Non-Attack Agreement is the oldest and longest-surviving nuclear arms control agreement in India and Pakistan’s diplomatic history. Some commentators have cited the Indo-Pakistan agreement as a model for putting nuclear energy facilities and other nuclear sites off-limits for attacks during peacetime and war.