The Strait and the Double Standard

What’s happening

Since the U.S. and Israel started striking Iran on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz has been largely blocked or disrupted. Iran says it won’t reopen it until Washington meets seven conditions. According to Iranian accounts, they include lifting the blockade of Iranian ports, lifting oil sanctions, and ending hostilities on every front. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is shuttling messages between the two sides, along with Qatar. Meanwhile Washington says the strait must reopen, and it points to the law of the sea to say so.

What the law says

Let’s start with the part that isn’t complicated. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ships and aircraft have a right of “transit passage” through straits like Hormuz, and that right “shall not be impeded.” Article 44 goes further: countries on the strait “shall not hamper transit passage,” and “there shall be no suspension of transit passage.”

Iran and Oman can make rules about navigation safety, pollution, fishing and customs. They can’t make rules that have the “practical effect of denying, hampering or impairing” passage. A toll for the privilege of sailing through isn’t on the list either. The head of the International Maritime Organization said in April that no country has a legal right to block shipping there.

So on the text, Iran loses.

Here’s the catch

Iran signed that treaty in 1982 and never ratified it. When it signed, it said it would only apply transit passage to countries that had ratified. The United States never signed at all. Its position is that the treaty’s navigation rules are customary international law, so they bind everyone anyway.

That’s a real argument, and honestly a good one. Decades of ships sailing through freely is strong evidence for it. But notice what Washington is saying: you’re bound by a treaty you never ratified, because the rule became custom. Keep that in your pocket.

Now look at the ICC

In November 2024 the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The U.S. isn’t a member of the court. Neither is Israel. Washington’s response was to sanction ICC judges and prosecutors in 2025. Then on October 9, it sanctioned the entire court. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s line was that President Trump “will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans.”

So here’s the scorecard. Iran never ratified the law of the sea, and it has to follow it anyway. The U.S. never joined the ICC, and it doesn’t have to answer to it. Same logic, opposite conclusions, depending on who’s holding the treaty. Apparently “I never signed it” is a legal doctrine that only works for one side of the table.

The fair pushback

The strongest reply is that the two situations aren’t identical. Washington is arguing custom against Iran, while the ICC’s reach is a treaty question about whether crimes on a member state’s territory count. Israel disputes that, though the court’s judges have rejected Israel’s challenges so far. That’s a real distinction, and a court could draw it.

But think about what both positions share: a country that didn’t sign gets to say “it doesn’t apply to me” when that helps, and “it applies to you” when that helps. If there’s a principle that tells you when each argument is allowed, I haven’t seen anyone say what it is.

Nobody’s clean here

I’m not defending Tehran. Closing an international strait, or charging ships to pass through it, has no footing in the text, and shutting a strait because you’re in a war is still shutting a strait.

But the war is part of the story. More than 100 international law experts said the February 28 strikes clearly violated the UN Charter. The administration has laid out its own legal position in a State Department memo. On the American blockade of Iranian ports, analysts split: some say a narrow blockade is easier to defend than closing a whole strait, others say it’s just a continuation of an unlawful use of force.

What you end up with is two governments that each treat international law as binding exactly when it’s the other guy’s turn.

What to watch

Iran has asked for recognition of an Iran–Oman arrangement on temporary passage through the strait. That points to a negotiated deal as the likely way out, not a court ruling. Also watch the lawsuit that ICC judges filed in Manhattan against the U.S. sanctions. And Pakistan’s army chief is now sitting in the middle of all this, which deserves an essay of its own.

Muhammad M. Ali is a 1L law student writing about immigration law, U.S. foreign policy and Pakistan. Read Closely publishes commentary and general information, not legal advice.