The head of the UN’s maritime agency (IMO) has rejected Iranian suggestions that it could legally charge a toll for the safe passage of seafarers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary general said that Iran’s membership to a treaty giving it the obligation to provide safe passage at sea meant it could not charge for it. “That's a contradiction. Right to safe passage means that you don’t have to pay for a service,” Mr Dominguez said.
Iran has said in ceasefire talks intended to re-open the Strait of Hormuz that it could charge a fee for ships that wish to transit. Hundreds of tankers are stranded in the Arabian Gulf due to the threat of Iranian attack.
Though Iran had not ratified the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea which would prevent it from charging a toll, it was still bound by the Safety of Life At Sea treaty which it had signed.
“They're not parties to the United Nations conventions of the Law of the Sea, but they are parties to the Solas convention,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“We have established in 1968 a mechanism for the ships to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, with an operation that has always been shared between Iran and Oman as the literal countries on the area,” he said.
“So there's no need to introduce any additional mechanism. The mechanism already exists, and Iran has complied with all those mechanisms, including the right to finish and passage,” he said.
After ceasefire talks to re-open the strait failed, US President Donald Trump announced the US would launch a naval blockade of the strait to deter any attacks from Iran on transiting ships on Sunday. A number of US allies rejected the proposal, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying he would not be “dragged” into a war with Iran.
About 10 to 11 ships had transited the strait in the past two days, Mr Domingues said quoting reports, but the prospect of failure of the ceasefire could mean all ships are blocked again.
“An additional blockade just doesn't really help anything in finding a solution to the conflict,” he said.
“We may go back to zero, which (is what it) was at the beginning of the conflict, when no ships were transiting,” he said.
“The focus for me, it goes back into the 20,000 seafarers are still not able to transit the fact that the global economy continues to to be affected by this conflict,” he said.
Mr Domingues warned against any tolls or fees being introduced saying they set a “dangerous precedent”.
“This principle of introducing a toll on international navigation is against the International Law of the Sea and the customary law,” he said.
“The countries of the flag state, the port states and the coastal states should not entertain this, because it will create a very dangerous precedent. So I will ask everyone to actually play by the rules and not to be participants in this kind of measures,” he said.
