Three legal frameworks, zero agreement, and the country caught in between
Iran has proposed a toll system for the Strait of Hormuz, France and the UK have drafted a freedom of navigation plan, and Oman, which actually co-administers the waterway, has suggested consulting the UN's International Maritime Organization before doing anything [1][3]. All three claim to be compliant with international law. The strait has been blockaded since late February, holding roughly a fifth of the world's oil hostage to competing interpretations of what "legal" means [1].
The mechanism of collapse is straightforward: Iran became a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 but never ratified it [1]. Tehran now argues that even if bound by the treaty, transit passage can be restricted "in the event of any threat or use of force against sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal states" [1]. On May 5, Iran established the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, requiring ships to register by email for routing information and permission to pass, with fees set at roughly a dollar per barrel payable in Iranian rials [1][5]. The US Treasury has since sanctioned the authority [1]. Arman Khorsand, head of Iran's Department of Environment Center for International Affairs and Environmental Conventions, framed the fees as addressing "environmental damage and compensate for consequences of actions that undermined innocent passage" [1]. Environmental language becomes geopolitical leverage when the underlying legal framework is contested.
IMO secretary general Arsenio Dominguez told the UN Security Council on April 27 that "there is no legal basis for any country to introduce payments or impose tolls, fees, or any discriminatory conditions on international straits" [1]. That position represents the consensus view of maritime law. It has been comprehensively ignored. Western diplomats call Iran's proposals unlawful because they impose tolls and give Tehran arbitrary authority to select which ships pass [1]. France and the UK responded by preparing their own plan based on freedom of navigation and presenting it to Oman [1]. No one asked Oman what it wanted. Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has defined the strait as "an exclusively Omani-Iranian waterway," stating flatly that "there is no international waters in between" [1]. Araghchi said Iran was coordinating with Oman about future management [1]. Oman says it has only been negotiating on a system "compliant with international law" that would be implemented after consulting the IMO [1].
The distance between those positions is the distance between law as a shared framework and law as a weapon. Oman shares stewardship of the strait with Iran [1]. It has played a mediation role throughout the US-Israel war on Iran [1]. On Wednesday, it issued a statement condemning Iranian attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait [1]. It has itself come under attack from Tehran [1]. Its coast guard rescued all 14 Indian crew members aboard the Haji Ali. Mohammed Suleiman Tamim al-Hinai, a member of Oman's Shura council, said the country "has consistently upheld the principle of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz under international maritime law" [1]. Oman is doing everything a responsible mediator is supposed to do. On Tuesday, Donald Trump threatened to "blow up" the country if it fails to "behave" [1][3].
The threat came during a cabinet meeting [3]. Oman's population is 5.3 million [1]. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that "there isn't a country on Earth other than Iran, and maybe Oman that flirted with it, who's in favour of what Iran is doing in the straits" [1]. The phrasing lumps Oman with Iran for the sin of talking to Iran. Oman's Washington ambassador Talal bin Suleiman al-Rahbi met with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and State Department officials to assure them that Oman opposes a system of tolls [1]. The assurances have not stopped the threats. The House approved a war powers resolution to halt US military action against Iran, a domestic attempt to constrain executive power that has no apparent influence on Trump's willingness to threaten a US ally in public.
Some Omani politicians have shown sympathy for "charging for specific and genuine services" [1]. Even Oman's position is not monolithic. That nuance is irrelevant when great powers are choosing between competing legal fictions. Ali Nikzad, Iran's deputy speaker of parliament, said efforts were underway to merge three different draft laws setting out how the government maritime regime would operate in the strait [1]. Iran is legislating a system that the IMO says has no legal basis. France and the UK are drafting frameworks for a waterway they don't administer. Oman proposed consulting the body actually responsible for international maritime standards and got threatened with annihilation for its trouble.
The system reveals itself in the punishment of good-faith actors. International law works when powerful countries agree on outcomes and use law to formalize that agreement. When they disagree, law becomes the language each side uses to describe why the other is a criminal. Oman's proposal to consult the IMO is the most legally sound option on the table. It is also the option with the least power behind it, which means it has no chance. Iran says it is willing within a month to ensure shipping returns to prewar levels as part of any agreement to reopen the strait [1]. That timeline depends on negotiations that Trump has spent weeks threatening to replace with force. The strait remains closed. The legal frameworks keep multiplying. And the country that actually shares stewardship of the waterway is learning that being right about process means nothing when no one agrees what the rules are.
