Mohd Firdaus Abdul Jabbar
I read my colleague Redza Zakaria’s recent article “Can Iran close the Strait of Hormuz?” with great interest. The topic is especially timely, as Iran announced on 2 March that it had closed the strait and vowed to attack any ship attempting to pass through it.
The announcement followed a statement by Brigadier General Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who said: “The strait is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guard and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze.”
As a result, trade through the Strait of Hormuz – including around 20% of the world’s oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Qatar – has come to a standstill, severely disrupting global energy markets and supply chains.
Once the strait is closed, there are very few alternative routes for transporting oil out of the region.
Various efforts have nonetheless been undertaken to ensure the free passage of tankers. These include military operations, the introduction of political risk insurance and guarantees, and other measures aimed at reducing the risks of navigating the area.
US President Donald Trump announced his willingness to do whatever he could to ensure the strait reopens, to allow “the free flow of energy to the world”. This illustrates how freedom of navigation, while framed in legal terms, ultimately depends on political will and coercive capacity rather than legal entitlement alone.
- Sign up for Aliran's free daily email updates or weekly newsletters or both
- Make a one-off donation to Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN), Maybank a/c 507246118995 or CIMB a/c 8004240948
- Make a regular pledge or periodic auto-donation to Aliran
- Become an Aliran member
I must say Redza’s discussion on the legality of Iran’s actions under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) offers a valuable angle for consideration.
However, limiting the explanation to warships creates a legal misalignment. The right of transit passage applies to all ships, not only warships.
Article 38(1) of Unclos states: “All ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage.”
Under Article 44, states bordering straits “shall not hamper transit passage”, underscoring that the legal right is deliberately robust, even if, in practice, it is not self-enforcing.
On paper, then, the legal position governing the Strait of Hormuz appears unambiguous.
In the current situation, commercial vessels are the primary concern, even if Iran invokes the doctrine of countermeasures or employs grey-zone maritime coercion tactics to justify its actions.
One might then wonder: if Unclos clearly protects transit passage, why is commercial shipping still being attacked?
The gap between law and power
This is where the situation becomes more complicated than a straightforward reading of international law might suggest. The answer lies in the uneasy gap between legal entitlement and strategic reality.
To understand why, one has to look beyond what the law permits and examine how power is exercised in practice – particularly when a determined regional power can render a strategic route practically unusable despite legal constraints.
Iran’s actions illustrate this clearly. Beyond threatening the free passage of ships, credible reports indicate that Iran has begun laying naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Multiple international sources, including CNN, the New York Times, CNBC and US Central Command, have reported that Iran has laid “a few dozen” mines and deployed mine-laying vessels in recent days. Even a limited mine-laying campaign is sufficient to deter commercial shipping by dramatically increasing insurance costs and operational risk.
Ships under attack
Several incidents involving cargo vessels, as reported by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), have been attributed to strikes by unknown projectiles in or near the Strait of Hormuz. The agency confirmed at least three such attacks on 11 March.
Iran claimed responsibility for two of the attacks. In a post on X, IRGC naval commander Admiral Alireza Tangsiri named the Mayuree Naree as one of the ships struck. As reported by Leily Nikounazar of the New York Times, Tangsiri said the vessel was attacked because it had ignored the warnings from Iran and ended up getting caught.
In an English translation of his post on X, Tangsiri wrote: “Who assured these ships that they could pass through the Strait of Hormuz? This must be asked of the crews of the ships Express Rome and Mayuree Naree, which today ignored the warnings and, relying on empty promises, intended to pass through the strait but were captured. Any vessel intending to pass must obtain permission from Iran.”
Strategy over law
This is why I argue that the legal dimension of world politics often diverges sharply from strategic reality during moments of crisis. When a state perceives itself to be under existential threat, its leaders prioritise survival and deterrence over compliance with international law.
This is not a radical claim. Scholars of international relations have long examined such behaviour, consistently arguing that the security of the state outweighs legal obligations.
The logic is brutally simple: a government that fails to protect its population will collapse long before any international tribunal condemns it. So, when Iran threatens shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, its leadership is not asking whether this is compliant with Unclos. It is asking whether this will deter further attacks. That is strategic psychology.
What the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz ultimately reveals, therefore, is not the irrelevance of international law, but its structurally limited capacity to restrain state behaviour under conditions of acute insecurity.
In an international system characterised by uneven power and weak enforcement, legal rules provide entitlement and vocabulary but not guarantees. During moments of strategic stress, international law tends to function instrumentally – interpreted, invoked or ignored in ways that serve immediate security objectives.
The uneasy coexistence of legal norms, diplomatic processes and coercive force in the Strait of Hormuz is thus not an aberration, but a familiar pattern of how global order operates when survival, deterrence and power come to the fore.
Dr Mohd Firdaus Abdul Jabbar is a senior lecturer specialising in politics and international relations at the International Institute of Public Policy and Management (Inpuma), University of Malaya.
The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
