Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
The U.S. and Iran are in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz. Both countries have effectively blockaded the waterway, causing higher energy prices across the world.
Civics 101 host Hannah McCarthy spoke with NHPR’s Julia Barnett to explain who legally controls the strait and what a blockade actually is.
So the Strait of Hormuz, it's been closed, then opened, then blockaded, but who actually controls it?
So under international law, no country has the right to close the strait or open it or blockade it. These are terms that President Trump has used, but they would be a violation of international law.
In terms of control, the strait is an international waterway. UN conventions, including the Law of the Sea, say that ships have a right of passage. Iran did not ratify the Law of the Sea. They say they can suspend passage in their territorial waters 12 nautical miles off their coast. Now, territorial waters are also defined and in fact expanded by the law of the sea, but again, Iran did not ratify that. Neither did the United States, for that matter.
So coming back to: who controls the Strait of Hormuz? From most of the world's perspective, nobody. From Iran's perspective and actions, they can choose to control about half of it at its narrowest point at least. And they have.
Both the U.S. and Iran have effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz. What does a blockade mean?
A blockade is a legal, defined, regulated action taken by one nation against another. It is an act of war wherein one country stops vessels or aircraft from exiting or entering another country's coast or port. In order for a blockade to be legal, it must be declared. It must be geographically defined. The target nation has to be given a grace period to essentially tie up loose ends at whatever border or point of entry is going to be blockaded. And the blockade cannot be used to stop food or medicine from entering a country.
So the Strait of Hormuz cannot be blockaded. It's not a coast, it's not a port. It does not belong to any one nation, again, legally speaking.
The Iranian government has been exerting control over the strait. This has been referred to as a blockade, but Iran has not declared a blockade on another nation or taken any other action that would classify as, again, a legal blockade. The United States, however, has. But it is not, despite President Trump's claims, a block of the Strait of Hormuz. It is a blockade of Iranian ports using 16 United States vessels in the seas near the strait to warn off and intercept Iranian-bound vessels and vessels attempting to leave Iran. Both Iran and the United States are dancing on the edge of international law at the moment, so things may develop beyond what is legally defined.
Yeah, so it seems Iran and the U.S. don't agree on international laws regarding the strait. What did these disagreements about terms and laws, more broadly, mean for the future?
The reason this boundary pushing, these questions of ratification or adherence, agreement or disagreement matter when it comes to international law is precedent and status quo. Even when a country does not ratify an international law, it can still be considered “customary” if it has been “firmly entrenched.” Now, these words may seem wishy-washy, but they matter from the global perspective. In fact, it's the UN's way of saying that you can still be breaking the law even if you don't agree to the law.
So when a country or multiple countries test these principles, two things are happening. One, they are essentially pressuring the UN to take action that the UN would likely prefer not to take. And two, these countries are projecting to other countries that perhaps these laws don't matter, perhaps you can just ignore them and get away with it. We will see if these experiments in testing the law give other countries half a mind to try that themselves.
