Is the Iranian regime entitled to impose financial levies on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz? The direct answer: no.
International maritime law rejects this. Common sense rejects it. The world rejects it. And the Sultanate of Oman, Iran’s other neighbor on the Strait of Hormuz, rejects it.
A spokesperson for the International Maritime Organization (IMO), affiliated with the United Nations, said two days ago, commenting on Iran’s intention to impose fees on the Strait of Hormuz, that “there is no international agreement where tolls can be introduced for transiting international straits. Any such toll will set a dangerous precedent,” according to Reuters.
The spokesperson added that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea guarantees ships the right of transit passage through international straits and that states bordering them may not impede or suspend that passage.
In Oman’s Shura Council, commenting on the issue, the Omani Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Saeed bin Hamoud al-Maawali, stated that the Sultanate of Oman has signed international agreements that “guarantee that no fees are imposed” on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
As for the Iranian regime, it has come forward with its own law and its own logic. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi stated that the Iranian parliament is already preparing a draft law to provide legal cover for imposing fees on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. This indicates that the move “is not mere rhetoric, but part of a well-devised plan to regulate navigation through the strait and impose fees.”
Could this be the step that brings down the regime? Who is harmed by closing the strait, controlling it, and deciding who may pass and who may not? Is it only Trump’s America? Only the Gulf states? Or the entire world?
The last answer is the correct one. With Iran’s first “hijacking” of the Strait of Hormuz, we are already seeing catastrophic effects on everything, from air transport in Europe due to the rising cost and scarcity of jet fuel, to the looming threat of a food crisis caused by blocking the passage of fertilizer shipments produced in Gulf petrochemical plants, such as urea, and so on.
Will this provocative Iranian behavior compel the world’s countries to intervene and put an end to it?
This is no joke. The European NATO alliance, which had resisted Trump in his confrontation with Iran, is now rallying to end this crisis.
We ask again: will the conduct of the “Revolutionary Guard Corps,” and its hijacking of the Strait of Hormuz, lead to bringing foreign powers into the waters of the Gulf? It is the very same force that claims the cause of unrest in the Gulf is the presence of the Americans. What happens if other nations are added to them, thanks to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?
