Iranian lawmaker Somayeh Rafii told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Thursday that his colleagues are considering a plan to impose tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has been blocking since the start of Operation Epic Fury by launching fierce attacks on international shipping.
“We are working on a plan in parliament under which 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,” Rafii told ISNA.
He said, “The security of the strait will be established by the Islamic Republic of Iran with power, authority and grandeur and the countries will have to pay taxes in return.”
Parliamentary theft plan came after Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf Said On Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz “will not return to pre-war conditions.”
Under international law, Iran has no right to block or tax international maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. is a strait under by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which guarantees the right of passage of all ships and aircraft through vital waterways, even in time of war.
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UNCLOS has long existed in a far more ambiguous status than “international law”, having been accepted or signed by various states, including both the United States and Iran, but not ratified. Most of the international community takes it seriously, but hostile powers like Iran have violated it before, most famously in the case of China. Ignore A 2016 tribunal ruled it disagreed and used force to assert claims over the South China Sea.
There is no recognized international law as gives Iran has the right to attack civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, or impose taxes and tolls against them. The two countries bordering the strait to the south, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), also have no authority to control the vital waterway. Iran has no legal right to lay mines in the strait, as it has frequently threatened to do over the years.
Iran has made some attempts to avoid these legalities by claiming that its attacks are only against ships belonging to its military enemies, the United States and Israel, but of course “international law” becomes volatile during any conflict.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Friday informed Iran is “imposing screening procedures and heavy transit fees” for ships seeking safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is trying to establish a “safe maritime framework” to evacuate merchant ships stranded in the Persian Gulf due to the closure of the strait.
“I stand ready to begin work immediately on negotiations to establish a humanitarian corridor to evacuate all stranded ships and sailors,” IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said at a special session on Thursday. The Iranian delegation at the session did not respond to his petition.
