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Only One Side Has Clearly Broken the Law In the Strait of Hormuz

For weeks, much of the world, from the Arab Gulf States to Europe, has accused Iran of violating international law by regulating the passage of and charging fees to ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. At the UN Security Council alone, multiple resolutions have been introduced to condemn Iran’s regulatory actions in the Strait. One of those resolutions passed with support from nearly 140 Member States.  Hours before the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7, 11 members of the Security Council voted in favor of another resolution that would have condemned Iran for its regulatory actions and authorized every UN Member State to go to war against it in order to open the Strait. 

By contrast, not a single resolution has been brought before the Council condemning the US/Israel war against Iran. The disparity between these two responses bears little relationship to the fact that only one side in this conflict has unequivocally broken international law—and it isn’t Iran.

The US/Israeli war is indisputably unlawful. It constitutes one of the gravest crimes under international law—the crime of aggression. The legality of Iran’s regulation of the Strait is, however, less clear-cut. Though Iran has not formally blockaded the Strait, it required ships to coordinate with it and abide by its regulatory regime in order to pass through during the war and ceasefire. It outright forbade US and Israeli-linked ships from transiting. As of today, it appears Iran is allowing all commercial ships, with the possible exception of those linked to the US and Israel, to pass through the Strait for the duration of the 10-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, though ships must still use a “coordinated route” that passes close to Iran’s coast. Iran has also reportedly charged a fee to some passing ships. Unlike the US, however, Iran can make a reasonable case that it is within its rights to do all these things under international law.

Instead of reflecting these realities, however, the international community has effectively treated Iran – rather than the two states that started a clearly illegal war against it – as the pariah nation in this conflict. This practice aligns with long-standing Western and allied tendencies to leverage international law to legitimize and whitewash imperial actions while simultaneously constraining Global South states that resist Western domination, including through legal means. While these resistant states are depicted as serial rule breakers, nations in the imperial core are framed as reliable, committed to the rule of law, and fundamentally dedicated to a peaceful and secure world. In this case, as is so often the case, the opposite is true. 

States are legally prohibited from going to war unless they have a right to self-defense—which is limited in scope—or are authorized to do so by the Security Council. This means they cannot use war or the threat of war to, for instance, force another country to make concessions over its nuclear program, ballistic missile program, or support for non-state actors. This is, however, precisely what the United States and Israel hoped to do in launching their war on Iran on February 28. 

Despite this blatant illegality, the Trump administration has made half-hearted attempts to justify its joint attack against Iran as defensive. Hardly anyone—including America’s Western allies—has bought into these legal justifications, even though many still support the US/Israeli war politically and militarily. In fact, with the exception of a few countries, like Spain, most Western governments have not clearly and unequivocally condemned US and Israeli actions against Iran. A few days after the war began, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested that Iran was not even entitled to the protections of international law. 

The United States’s latest move against Iran—to institute a naval blockade against its ports and coastal areas—is also clearly unlawful but has similarly generated little legal pushback.........

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