Published: 04:01 PM, 27 February 2026
Pakistan and the rule of law
File photo.
Early this year, I was listening to Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, as he addressed a high level Security Council debate on the rule of law, saying that the rule of law requires action and accountability, and that “law must prevail over force, and justice over impunity.” For most Pakistanis and those who have worked for years across South Asis and the region’s affairs, this speech landed at a moment when preventive detention, expanded coercive policing, and a deeper normalization of impunity, especially in places like Balochistan, shows the country’s own action at home is moving in the opposite of what “rule of law” looks like. This rule-of-law rhetoric is even harder to take seriously at the international level due to country’s behavior with its neighbor as for decades almost all neighbors of Pakistan have hostile relationship with the country, including with India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan – both during the republic era of Afghanistan and now under Taliban regime.
Pakistan’s UN language also often points outward, criticizing others’ breaches of order and legality, yet its own regional conduct repeatedly undermines the same principles. Alongside sheltering terrorist networks as strategic assets, Pakistan has for decades treated Afghanistan territory as a space for military solutions, including cross border bombardment. Most recently, late on 22 February 2026, Pakistani strikes hit multiple locations inside Afghanistan, killing many civilian, including women and children.
Not only this, while Pakistan is formally a constitutional parliamentary democracy, but the country has long suffered from a deeper structural problem involving a security state in which the civilian government often appears elected, but is not fully sovereign due to military control, which results in institutions that wield force not consistently answering to public accountability. The military establishment holds decisive influence over core domains such as security policy, regional strategy, and often the boundaries of civilian politics. In this political environment, that imbalance, shapes how law is applied, and whom it protects. This contradiction by Pakistan over talking about rule-of-law in abroad, but coercive exception inside the country, is not something new. It is a pattern. Pakistan, for a long time, has learned to speak in two languages: one for the international community, especially in New York; another for its own citizens.
Ambassador Asim Iftikhar’s January 2026 remarks about accountability and rule of law, did not appear out of thin air. Pakistan’s diplomats have been using the vocabulary of rule of law, human rights at the UN for years. In October 2014, Pakistan’s then-permanent representative Masood Khan told the UN’s Sixth Committee that “the essence of the rule of law is access to justice; and the essence of access to justice is legal empowerment of people so that they can enjoy their full civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights.” A decade later, in 2024, Pakistan’s envoy in New York at the time, Ambassador Munir Akram, delivered a Sixth Committee statement arguing that the world was witnessing an erosion of international rule of law and criticized states that advocate “rule of law” only as they interpret it.
But these words does not apply at home. Starting with the most recent development, Pakistan’s federal parliament has advanced amendments to the country’s anti-terrorism framework that revive and widen preventive detention powers, which acccording to many, including the UN experts, is raising the risk of torture and coercion, worsening Pakistan’s already notorious problem of enforced disappearances, and enables the arbitrary detention of those criticizing the government. The bill provides legal grounds for detention of up to 3 months on broadly framed national security grounds. At the provincial level, the shift is even worse. In Balochistan, in early 2026, the provincial cabinet approved rules under the Anti-Terrorism (Balochistan Amendment) Act, 2025, allowing 90-day detentions without trial, which, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the security narrative in Balochistan is increasingly being used to normalize enforced disappearances, and this Act creates conditions where torture and human rights abuse become more likely.
There is no doubt Pakistan has a genuine security crisis, as militant violence is on the rise and many civilians have been targeted. In 2026 alone, Pakistan has witnessed scores of terror attacks, including in mosques and during wedding celebrations. Earlier this month, dozens of people were killed in Balochistan in an attack by what the Pakistani government says was carried out by the Balochistan Liberation Army, which was condemned by the UN Security Council, reflecting the seriousness of the threat environment.
But the question is whether Pakistan is confronting that threat through law, or through exceptions to law that expand state power without the “rule of law.” From what the evidence says, Pakistan’s direction points to the latter.
And the reason these exceptions keep expanding is that the institutions meant to stop them, review executive power, and protect citizens from excessive state power are themselves being targeted and regularly being squeezed. In October 2024, Pakistan passed the 26th Constitutional Amendment, which changed the process for appointing the Pakistan’s chief justice, by transferring significant influence to a parliamentary committee, and drew warnings from the International Commission of Jurists, saying that the amendment was a “blow to judicial independence, the rule of law, and human rights protection.” Then in November 2025, Pakistan adopted further constitutional changes tied to the creation of a Federal Constitutional Court which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that these moves subjugate the judiciary to political interference and executive control and raises concerns about “sweeping immunity provisions” that could undermine accountability – precisely the opposite of the accountability Pakistan showing to champion at the UN and this is why Pakistan’s UN rhetoric increasingly sounds less like principle and more like performance.
This language even goes to terrorism – the issue Pakistan most frequently uses at the UN to claim moral authority, sympathy, and strategic necessity. In a Security Council counterterrorism debate on 10 February 2025, Pakistan told the Council it has been “at the forefront” of global counterterrorism and has paid a “heavy price,” citing 80,000 casualties. As mentioned above, Pakistan is suffering horrific attacks and mass casualties by militant groups, but in the India-Pakistan arena, there are enough proof that Pakistan has long provided sheltered to certain terrorist and radical groups as strategic assets, whether, before 2021 Taliban, or groups that are anti-India. One such group is Jaish-i-Mohammed (JeM) Jaish-i-Mohammed (JeM), which the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee describes as a group based in Pakistan, with a long history of attacks and ties to Al-Qaida.
Despite these double standards in what the country says abroad and how it behaves in home, eventhough the country’s UN messaging often centers on the idea that law must prevail over force, it is impossible to take that seriously when the state for decade has been applying counterterrorism selectively by acting harsh on internal dissent and peripheral populations, but ambiguous or inconsistent on terrorist networks that intersect with its strategic competition. From a simple looks to this double behaviour, if one imagine the Pakistan’s image with international arena, it increasingly looks like a state demanding principled legality from others while widening coercive discretion for itself, with sharp diplomats knowing well how to use this language fluently.
Written by: Natiq Malikzada (The author is a journalist and human rights advocate with an MA in International Relations, Middle East and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, where he studied as a Chevening Scholar.)
>> Source: Amu TV
Pakistan’s UN language also often points outward, criticizing others’ breaches of order and legality, yet its own regional conduct repeatedly undermines the same principles. Alongside sheltering terrorist networks as strategic assets, Pakistan has for decades treated Afghanistan territory as a space for military solutions, including cross border bombardment. Most recently, late on 22 February 2026, Pakistani strikes hit multiple locations inside Afghanistan, killing many civilian, including women and children.
Not only this, while Pakistan is formally a constitutional parliamentary democracy, but the country has long suffered from a deeper structural problem involving a security state in which the civilian government often appears elected, but is not fully sovereign due to military control, which results in institutions that wield force not consistently answering to public accountability. The military establishment holds decisive influence over core domains such as security policy, regional strategy, and often the boundaries of civilian politics. In this political environment, that imbalance, shapes how law is applied, and whom it protects. This contradiction by Pakistan over talking about rule-of-law in abroad, but coercive exception inside the country, is not something new. It is a pattern. Pakistan, for a long time, has learned to speak in two languages: one for the international community, especially in New York; another for its own citizens.
Ambassador Asim Iftikhar’s January 2026 remarks about accountability and rule of law, did not appear out of thin air. Pakistan’s diplomats have been using the vocabulary of rule of law, human rights at the UN for years. In October 2014, Pakistan’s then-permanent representative Masood Khan told the UN’s Sixth Committee that “the essence of the rule of law is access to justice; and the essence of access to justice is legal empowerment of people so that they can enjoy their full civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights.” A decade later, in 2024, Pakistan’s envoy in New York at the time, Ambassador Munir Akram, delivered a Sixth Committee statement arguing that the world was witnessing an erosion of international rule of law and criticized states that advocate “rule of law” only as they interpret it.
But these words does not apply at home. Starting with the most recent development, Pakistan’s federal parliament has advanced amendments to the country’s anti-terrorism framework that revive and widen preventive detention powers, which acccording to many, including the UN experts, is raising the risk of torture and coercion, worsening Pakistan’s already notorious problem of enforced disappearances, and enables the arbitrary detention of those criticizing the government. The bill provides legal grounds for detention of up to 3 months on broadly framed national security grounds. At the provincial level, the shift is even worse. In Balochistan, in early 2026, the provincial cabinet approved rules under the Anti-Terrorism (Balochistan Amendment) Act, 2025, allowing 90-day detentions without trial, which, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the security narrative in Balochistan is increasingly being used to normalize enforced disappearances, and this Act creates conditions where torture and human rights abuse become more likely.
There is no doubt Pakistan has a genuine security crisis, as militant violence is on the rise and many civilians have been targeted. In 2026 alone, Pakistan has witnessed scores of terror attacks, including in mosques and during wedding celebrations. Earlier this month, dozens of people were killed in Balochistan in an attack by what the Pakistani government says was carried out by the Balochistan Liberation Army, which was condemned by the UN Security Council, reflecting the seriousness of the threat environment.
But the question is whether Pakistan is confronting that threat through law, or through exceptions to law that expand state power without the “rule of law.” From what the evidence says, Pakistan’s direction points to the latter.
And the reason these exceptions keep expanding is that the institutions meant to stop them, review executive power, and protect citizens from excessive state power are themselves being targeted and regularly being squeezed. In October 2024, Pakistan passed the 26th Constitutional Amendment, which changed the process for appointing the Pakistan’s chief justice, by transferring significant influence to a parliamentary committee, and drew warnings from the International Commission of Jurists, saying that the amendment was a “blow to judicial independence, the rule of law, and human rights protection.” Then in November 2025, Pakistan adopted further constitutional changes tied to the creation of a Federal Constitutional Court which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that these moves subjugate the judiciary to political interference and executive control and raises concerns about “sweeping immunity provisions” that could undermine accountability – precisely the opposite of the accountability Pakistan showing to champion at the UN and this is why Pakistan’s UN rhetoric increasingly sounds less like principle and more like performance.
This language even goes to terrorism – the issue Pakistan most frequently uses at the UN to claim moral authority, sympathy, and strategic necessity. In a Security Council counterterrorism debate on 10 February 2025, Pakistan told the Council it has been “at the forefront” of global counterterrorism and has paid a “heavy price,” citing 80,000 casualties. As mentioned above, Pakistan is suffering horrific attacks and mass casualties by militant groups, but in the India-Pakistan arena, there are enough proof that Pakistan has long provided sheltered to certain terrorist and radical groups as strategic assets, whether, before 2021 Taliban, or groups that are anti-India. One such group is Jaish-i-Mohammed (JeM) Jaish-i-Mohammed (JeM), which the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee describes as a group based in Pakistan, with a long history of attacks and ties to Al-Qaida.
Despite these double standards in what the country says abroad and how it behaves in home, eventhough the country’s UN messaging often centers on the idea that law must prevail over force, it is impossible to take that seriously when the state for decade has been applying counterterrorism selectively by acting harsh on internal dissent and peripheral populations, but ambiguous or inconsistent on terrorist networks that intersect with its strategic competition. From a simple looks to this double behaviour, if one imagine the Pakistan’s image with international arena, it increasingly looks like a state demanding principled legality from others while widening coercive discretion for itself, with sharp diplomats knowing well how to use this language fluently.
Written by: Natiq Malikzada (The author is a journalist and human rights advocate with an MA in International Relations, Middle East and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, where he studied as a Chevening Scholar.)
>> Source: Amu TV
