SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Iran’s Supreme Leader’s position on the new management of passage through the Strait of Hormuz is firmly grounded in international law.

https://x.com/RezaNasri1/status/2049884512029454773

Iran’s Supreme Leader’s position on the new management of passage through the Strait of Hormuz is firmly grounded in international law. 

The reality is that a war of aggression waged by nuclear-armed powers against Iran (a littoral state) compels a fundamental reassessment by Western countries of their longstanding understanding of passage rights in this critical waterway.

A decisive factor that deprives the Strait of Hormuz of the neutrality required for unconditional transit passage is the extensive network of US military installations across Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. 

These bases—housing forward-deployed aircraft, warships, missile defence systems, and logistics hubs—serve no commercial or neutral purpose. Their explicit strategic objective, repeatedly articulated in US defence posture statements, is to project power against Iran and to enable rapid military operations in the Persian Gulf. As stated by the US President, however, the function of these bases extends far beyond conventional military operations: they could serve as platforms to destroy an entire civilisation and pose an existential threat to the Iranian nation.

Under international law, an international strait derives its special transit-passage status precisely from its function as a neutral corridor linking two bodies of high seas or exclusive economic zones (UNCLOS Art. 37). When one littoral side is transformed into a permanent armed perimeter directed at the opposite coastal state, the waterway ceases to operate as a normal international strait. Instead, it becomes an integral component of a hostile military theatre. The presence of these bases creates a structural asymmetry that is fundamentally incompatible with the neutrality presupposed by the transit-passage regime.

This situation finds partial analogy in the law governing demilitarised zones and neutralised territories, such as the Antarctic Treaty System or the Treaty of Tlatelolco. More directly, the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case (1986) recognised that the stationing of foreign forces and the use of territory for aggressive purposes can constitute a threat of force. Here, the bases did not merely threaten; they operationalised the recent aggression.

At the very least, until these installations are fully removed and supplanted by a genuine local collective security regime that guarantees the security of all littoral states, including Iran, the Strait of Hormuz cannot be treated as just any neural international waterway.

The international community must now recognise that the law of the sea is not a suicide pact. A new framework of conditional passage, grounded in regional security, offers the only path forward that is both legally coherent and strategically sustainable.

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Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei

@MKhamenei_ir

Iran's new management of the Strait of Hormuz and the corresponding legal framework will secure comfort and progress for the benefit of all the nations of the region.