APTTA versus Chabahar: Which Transit Trade Agreement Offers Afghanistan Broader Legal Benefits

To obtain free transit and free access to and from the sea, the landlocked LDC Afghanistan has concluded transit agreements with its two coastal neighboring States. These agreements are the 2010 Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) with Pakistan and the 2016 Chabahar Agreement with Iran and India. Since the conclusion of APTTA, the contracting parties have alleged frequent violations of the Agreement, which has been one main reason persuading Afghanistan to conclude the Chabahar Agreement with Iran and India. While the benefits of the two agreements are often examined from an economic perspective, the legal implications of these agreements have not been assessed. This paper provides a comparative legal analysis of both agreements to assess which of them offers broader legal transit trade benefits for Afghanistan and whether the Chabahar Agreement is a viable alternative to APTTA. The paper generally concludes that the Chabahar Agreement can reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan in terms of access to the sea, but it does not serve a viable alternative to APTTA. The Chabahar Agreement could serve as a separate transit agreement providing Afghanistan with more options to access to the sea. Both APTTA and the Chabahar Agreement have their own particulars and none of them should replace the other.