Iran Considers Tolls and Taxes on Shipping Through Strait of Hormuz
Iranian MP Somayeh Rafiei told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Thursday that her colleagues were considering a plan to impose tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has been blocking with wanton attacks on international shipping since the start of Operation Epic Fury.
“In Parliament, we are pursuing a plan where countries will pay tolls and taxes to the Islamic Republic if the Strait of Hormuz is used as a safe route for transit, energy and food security,” Rafiei told ISNA.
“The security of the strait will be ensured with force, authority and grandeur by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and countries will have to pay a tax in return,” she said.
The parliamentary hacking plan came after President Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said On Tuesday, the Strait of Hormuz “will not return to its pre-war status.”
Iran does not have the right to block or tax international maritime traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz under international law. The strait is ruled by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which guarantees the right of passage for all ships and aircraft over this vital waterway, even in times of war.
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UNCLOS has long existed in a state even more nebulous than much of what passes for “international law,” having been accepted or signed but not ratified by various states, including the United States and Iran. Most of the international community takes it seriously, but hostile powers like Iran have already violated it, notably in the case of China. without taking into account a 2016 court ruled that he disagreed and used force to claim the South China Sea.
There is no recognized international law which given Iran has the right to attack civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, or to impose taxes and tolls against them. The two nations bordering the strait to the south, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), also have no right to control this vital waterway. Iran also has no legal right to lay mines in the strait, as it has frequently threatened to do over the years.
Iran has made efforts to circumvent these legalities by claiming that its attacks are only directed against ships belonging to its military enemies, the United States and Israel, but of course, “international law” tends to get hazy during any conflict.
THE South China Morning Post (SCMP) Friday reported that Iran is “implementing screening processes and high transit fees” for ships seeking to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is trying to establish a “safe maritime framework” to evacuate merchant ships stuck in the Persian Gulf by the closure of the strait.
“I am ready to immediately begin working in negotiations to establish a humanitarian corridor to evacuate all stranded ships and sailors,” IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said during an extraordinary session on Thursday. The Iranian delegation present at the session did not respond to his call.
