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Bahrain’s bid to win UN backing for a resolution calling for “all necessary means” to safeguard shipping in the Strait of Hormuz failed after key Security Council members raised objections.
The result highlights widening divisions over how to respond to Iran’s effective shutdown of a waterway critical to global energy flows.
The initial draft, seen by The National, explicitly cited Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which grants the Security Council authority to impose measures ranging from sanctions to military action.
But UN diplomats said Russia and China, both aligned with Iran, objected to language that they argued would legitimise military action. They criticised the text as being one-sided and ignoring the causes of the escalation in the Middle East.
After discussions among council members, a third revision dropped the explicit reference to Chapter VII but retained provisions for “all necessary means” to ensure safe passage through the strait.
Diplomatic “silence” on the draft – a procedural sign of consensus – was broken just before a Wednesday deadline when Russia, China and France raised fresh concerns, UN diplomats said. They called for further negotiations, particularly over language on freedom of navigation.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Anna Evstigneeva, told The National that Moscow was seeking a resolution that addressed the crisis “comprehensively, including its root causes”, rather than what she said was as a one-sided and unbalanced approach.
It remains unclear whether Bahrain will proceed to a vote without broader support.
Bahrain’s UN ambassador, Jamal Fares Alrowaiei, who took over the presidency of the 15-member UN Security Council for April, told reporters in New York on Wednesday that the GCC states cannot “accept that the situation remains as is”.
“We cannot accept economic terrorism affecting our region and the world, and the whole world is being affected by this development. This resolution is of paramount importance, and it comes at a critical juncture,” he said.
“We hope it would be adopted as soon as possible,” he added.
The measure seeks to guarantee the uninterrupted flow of energy supplies through the strait, a narrow waterway at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf through which about a fifth of global oil trade usually passes.
If approved, it would authorise member states, acting individually or through voluntary multinational naval partnerships, to use “all necessary means” to secure passage and deter attempts to block or interfere with international navigation through the strait.
The text of the draft emphasises that ships and aircraft are entitled to cross the strait under international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and that such movement “shall not be impeded”.
It reflects mounting concern that Iran’s actions, including attacks on regional energy infrastructure and interference with commercial shipping, have already driven up global oil prices and unsettled markets.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed to what it called the country’s “enemies”, after US President Donald Trump indicated that a ceasefire would depend on the waterway being reopened.
The International Energy Agency has warned that disruptions to global oil supplies in April are expected to be about twice as severe as last month, highlighting the mounting risk to energy markets.
Informed sources in New York said discussions at the UN over the past week have been focused on the wider economic risks posed by Iran’s actions in the strait, which are seen as a direct threat to global energy supplies and trade flows.
The argument, they said, is that no country should be able to use control over a critical maritime chokepoint to exert economic pressure or disrupt global markets.
The draft resolution also linked the Hormuz crisis to instability in the Red Sea, warning of broader risks to global trade routes, and “expresses its readiness to consider further measures, as appropriate, against those who take actions that undermine navigational rights and freedoms and impede lawful transit passage or freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al Mandeb”.
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis effectively shut down Red Sea shipping during the Gaza war until May last year, when, after strikes by the US and Israel, the group agreed to a ceasefire and halted threats to ships in the waterway.
The group now says it is closely monitoring what it calls “enemy movements” in the region and has placed its naval forces on full alert, raising fears of renewed disruption across interconnected maritime routes.
