On 7 May 2025, the Republic of India, in a deliberate and provocative act of belligerence, employed standoff weapons to strike civilian population centres within the internationally recognized territory of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. These brazen attacks targeted Muridke, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, and parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, resulting in the senseless martyrdom of innocent civilians, including women and children, and flagrantly endangered international civil aviation. This persistent reckless aggression since May 7th, devoid of lawful justification, constitutes a causus belli for Pakistan and represents an egregious affront to both international law and the regional cooperative framework of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Such actions are not merely transgressions—they are acts of war undertaken with full knowledge of their consequences. India’s behaviour represents a wilful and egregious repudiation of the United Nations Charter, specifically Article 2(4), which prohibits the threat or use of force. It further constitutes a manifest breach of the SAARC Charter, whose foundational principles—sovereign equality, peaceful coexistence, and mutual trust—have been rendered meaningless by India’s consistent and contemptuous disregard. This is conduct contra pactum and contra bonos mores, and must be condemned as such.
India’s attempt to cloak its aggression under the pretext of the Pahalgam incident—an event for which it has furnished neither credible evidence nor any semblance of due process—epitomises bad faith (mala fide) and demonstrates a pattern of manipulation designed to stoke regional instability.
The invocation of self-defence in the absence of an actual armed attack is a gross perversion of Article 51 of the UN Charter and has no support in lex lata. Moreover, it is a well settled principle of Stimson Doctrine that ex iniuria jus non oritur, meaning a legal right cannot arise from a wrongful act.
Moreover, the deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a grave and systematic violation of international humanitarian law. The principle of distinction, a cardinal norm under the Geneva Conventions and customary international law, has been blatantly disregarded. If proven, such actions may amount to war crimes, triggering individual criminal responsibility under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. India’s conduct reflects not only impunity but a profound disdain for the sanctity of civilian life, dignity, and the very essence of jus in bello. Silence in the face of such conduct is complicity.
Within the regional context, India’s actions have effectively hollowed out the normative framework of SAARC. Its conduct stands in direct violation of Articles I and II of the SAARC Charter and amounts to a repudiation of the Association’s very raison d’être. India has repeatedly acted with hubris and hegemonic ambition, more befitting a regional aggressor than a partner in multilateralism. Its continued participation in SAARC, without accountability, renders the Charter an empty vessel.
India has, in addition, violated international aviation law by exposing civilian air corridors to military engagement, in breach of the Chicago Convention and related ICAO protocols.
Pakistan retains and was within its inherent rights to act in self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which may be exercised at a time, place, and manner of its sovereign choosing. Such response, when invoked, shall be guided not by revenge, but by law, necessity, and the imperative of deterrence. As demonstrated by the Pakistani response to Indian aggression on the morning of May 10th.
However, India’s persistent reckless militarism poses a clear and present danger to the peace and security of the entirety of South Asia. Thus, the Council of Ministers of SAARC must no longer remain inert. The situation demands an extra ordinem session to address this violation foederis—a treaty breach of the most serious kind. Simultaneously, Pakistan must continue to pursue all remedies available under international law, including recourse to the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation. For it is a settled principle of natural justice, as denoted by the maxim; Ubi jus ibi remedium—where there is a right, there must be a remedy.
India’s actions are a direct challenge to the international legal order. These are the calculated moves of a state emboldened by historical impunity and wilful unaccountability to law or morality. If international law is to retain any normative force, then India must be held to account and this egregious aggression cannot be let to slide.
As parting advice to guide Pakistan’s way forward, I offer; Fiat justitia ruat caelum – let justice be done though the heavens may fall.
