Six months into 2025, the subcontinent is still counting the cost of the May missile exchanges between India and Pakistan. What started as a shadowy attack in Pahalgam ended with Rafales burning on an Indian tarmac and Pakistani civilians fleeing Muridke air raid sirens. But the real tragedy is how unnecessary it all was. The legal framework to handle such incidents already exists, buried in UN resolutions and mutual legal assistance laws. The only thing missing was the political will to use it.
Back in 2016, a small group of Pakistani legal scholars at the Research Society of International Law (RSIL) in Islamabad floated an idea they called legal diplomacy. The concept was simple: when terrorism cases erupt between nuclear neighbours, why not lean on cross-border law-enforcement cooperation rather than chest-thumping and air strikes? The RSIL team, led by Jamal Aziz and Awais Anwer, even drafted a workshop for Indian officials. Two diplomats from the Indian High Commission showed up, but the momentum fizzled. Nine years later, the region is paying the price.
What happened in Pahalgam on 12 March 2025 remains murky. India alleged a Pakistan-based outfit carried out the assault. Pakistan called it a staged operation by Indian intelligence. Either way, the standard response should have been an exchange of formal requests under UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which obligates states to assist each other in counter-terrorism probes. India could have filed an FIR in Srinagar and then sent a letter under Section 166A of India's Criminal Procedure Code, formally asking Pakistan for investigative help. Islamabad, in turn, could have invoked its Mutual Legal Assistance Act of 2020, which mirrors the UN requirement. Pakistan would have been legally bound to respond within 60 days. Instead, New Delhi chose the missile option, striking targets in Punjab. Lahore's air defences answered in kind, and the spiral began.
After Balakot, would legal diplomacy have changed anything?
In 2019, after the Pulwama attack, India conducted the Balakot strike, losing one MiG-21 and capturing Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. The episode cost India both aircraft and prisoner. Had police-to-polest cooperation been active, investigators from both sides could have shared forensic samples, phone intercepts, and witness statements within weeks. A joint dossier might have shown Pakistani state involvement, or cleared Islamabad of the charge. Either outcome would have defused the crisis before air forces scrambled. The same logic applies to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, where suspects like Zia ur Rehman Lakhvi and Ajmal Kasab were kept incommunicado. If bilateral legal channels had been open, cross-examination of witnesses could have happened in real time, reducing the rancour that froze diplomatic channels for years.
Yet the bigger question is why neither side embraced the legal route. India's foreign policy establishment has long preferred kinetic signalling over forensic transparency. Pakistan, meanwhile, has treated terrorism prosecutions as domestic affairs, reluctant to open its courts to foreign scrutiny. Both capitals fear precedent: accepting legal cooperation could imply complicity or weaken deterrence narratives. The result is a paradox, two states that demand the other follow international law, yet refuse to invoke it when it matters most.
South Asia's hidden cost: when courts fail, economies suffer
Trade between India and Pakistan was already a fraction of its potential, just $2.6 billion in 2023, compared to $70 billion between India and China. Every crisis shuts the Wagah border longer, disrupting truck convoys carrying textiles, pharmaceuticals, and fresh produce. The 2024 escalation added another 72-hour closure, costing Lahore's wholesale markets an estimated $80 million in perishable losses. But the damage runs deeper. Foreign investors watch these cycles and reroute capital to Dubai or Singapore. The Asian Development Bank's latest South Asia report highlights how even low-intensity conflicts reduce regional GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points annually. A legal-diplomacy protocol could reopen trade routes within weeks, not months, by giving businesses a predictable crisis-resolution mechanism.
For Pakistan, the stakes are existential. With IMF talks stalled and debt repayments looming, every rupee counts. Islamabad could turn legal cooperation into a confidence-building measure: sharing actionable intelligence on banned outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed could unlock counter-terrorism financing rewards from the Financial Action Task Force. For India, embracing mutual legal assistance would blunt Pakistan's favourite complaint at the UN Human Rights Council, that New Delhi refuses to investigate state-backed excesses in Kashmir. A single shared FIR on the 2025 Pahalgam episode would have undercut both narratives.
There is a historical parallel worth recalling. In 1999, after the hijacking of IC-814, India and Pakistan nearly went to war. But within months, both sides quietly revived the 1997 bilateral agreement on preventing airspace violations. Pilots, air traffic controllers, and even coast guard officials began sharing real-time data. The agreement survived Kargil, Parliament attack, and Mumbai. Legal-diplomacy is the civilian analogue: it doesn't resolve sovereignty disputes, but it prevents everyday crises from escalating into existential ones.
What happens next? The most likely scenario is inertia. Both foreign offices will dust off old talking points: India insists on "actionable intelligence," Pakistan demands "proof beyond reasonable doubt." Meanwhile, the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee will issue another bland statement urging restraint. Yet change often comes from below. Police departments in Punjab (India) and Punjab (Pakistan) already exchange flood relief material every monsoon. If they extended that cooperation to counter-terrorism, the political deadlock might loosen.
The alternative is bleak. Without a legal protocol, the next Pahalgam could trigger airstrikes on Lahore's hospitals, not just empty fields. The missiles won't know the difference. And the lawyers who drafted the Mutual Legal Assistance Act of 2020 will be the ones left counting the dead.
