The Toll Road

On Day 25 of the war, Iran issued its conditions for peace. The fifth condition demands what international maritime law explicitly prohibits any state from claiming: sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

geopolitics

On March 25, Iran rejected the US fifteen-point ceasefire plan and issued five conditions for ending the war. The first four are familiar diplomatic architecture: stop the strikes, guarantee non-repetition, pay reparations, extend the ceasefire to all allied forces across the region. Each is a negotiating position. Each can be modulated.

The fifth is not a negotiating position.

“Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is and will remain Iran’s natural and legal right, and it constitutes a guarantee for the implementation of the other party’s commitments, and must be recognized.”

Iran is not asking to continue managing the strait under a wartime emergency mechanism. It is demanding formal international recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the waterway that carries twenty-one percent of the world’s petroleum. And it is tying that recognition to enforcement --- making Hormuz control the guarantee that the other conditions hold.

The progression

This did not appear on Day 25. It was constructed across twenty-five days.

In the first week, the IRGC closed the Strait of Hormuz to traffic --- an act of war, framed as one. By the second week, closure became selective. Lloyd’s List Intelligence documented a vetting system: approximately $2 million per transit, five bilateral partners --- China, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia --- operating through named channels that recognized Iran’s transit authority as a political fact. Roughly ninety vessels transited under IRGC clearance between March 1 and March 15.

By the third week, the improvisation became legislation. On March 19, MP Somayeh Rafiei announced the Majlis was drafting a bill to impose permanent transit fees on ships passing through the strait, framed as “compensation for providing security along the route.” I documented this progression two days ago.

Then, on March 24-25, the diplomatic layer. Foreign Minister Araghchi, in a phone call with China’s Wang Yi, stated the doctrine in eight words: the strait is accessible, but “countries that are at war with Iran are not under consideration.” Not “hostile nations.” Not “enemies.” Countries at war. The category is designed to be expansive. Is France at war with Iran? France refused coalition membership, signed the twenty-two-nation condemnation statement, offered post-war mediation. France’s status under Iran’s doctrine is undefined --- and undefined is the functional mechanism. Iran decides who transits by keeping the boundaries of the category at its own discretion.

The same day, Iran’s mission to the United Nations and its Foreign Ministry sent formal notifications to the International Maritime Organization and the UN Security Council. Ships may transit “provided that they neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran and fully comply with the declared safety and security regulations” --- in “coordination with the competent Iranian authorities.” Transit as permission. Access as license. The language of a sovereign gatekeeper, not a coastal state.

Then today’s five conditions formalized all of it into a diplomatic demand. The progression is complete: wartime closure --- selective vetting --- bilateral revenue architecture --- parliamentary toll bill --- diplomatic doctrine --- formal sovereignty claim as a precondition for peace.

Each step was incremental. Each step built on the last. None of them can be unwound by unwinding the next one.

What the law says

The Strait of Hormuz is classified as a strait used for international navigation. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 38, all ships enjoy the right of transit passage through such straits. Article 44 is explicit: states bordering the strait “shall not hamper transit passage and shall not suspend” it.

Iran never ratified UNCLOS. Neither did the United States. Neither did Israel.

But transit passage through international straits is widely understood as customary international law --- binding on all states regardless of whether they signed the convention. Mark Nevitt, writing in Just Security, put it directly: “The transit-passage regime for international straits is widely regarded as customary international law and binding on all States.”

Iran’s Condition 5 demands what customary international law explicitly prohibits: sovereign control over an international strait. Iran’s “coordination with competent Iranian authorities” clause converts transit from a right into a permission. The entire architecture --- the vetting system, the toll bill, the bilateral arrangements, the diplomatic notifications --- is a permission system. UNCLOS says no state can impose one.

Iran’s counter-argument has legal substance, even if most scholars reject it. Alexander Lott, writing in EJIL Talk, identified the gap: Iran has maintained since the 1982 convention that the transit passage regime applies only to UNCLOS parties. Iran’s position is that the more restrictive “innocent passage” regime governs --- under which a coastal state can suspend passage that is “not innocent.” Iran may also claim persistent objector status, arguing it has consistently rejected the customary rule since the convention was drafted. Most international lawyers find this unpersuasive. But the argument is on the record, and it now has twenty-five days of operational facts behind it.

The legal analysis matters less than the operational reality. As Nevitt concluded: “International law provides robust protections for transit passage rights, but it provides no reliable mechanism for enforcing them at scale.” Ninety vessels transited in fifteen days under Iranian clearance. Five bilateral partners participate in the system. The parliamentary bill advances. The IMO and Security Council received the notifications. The facts are outrunning the law.

The gap

The US fifteen-point plan, transmitted through Pakistan, addresses nuclear sites. Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow to be decommissioned. All enriched material transferred to the IAEA. No weapons-grade uranium on Iranian soil. IAEA full access. Proxy funding ended. Missiles limited to self-defense ranges. In return: all sanctions lifted, civilian nuclear assistance at Bushehr, the snapback mechanism removed.

One of the fifteen points addresses Hormuz: the strait is to remain open as a “free maritime zone” with “no one” blocking it.

That point describes an outcome. It does not address the architecture Iran has built to prevent that outcome. The plan says the strait should be open. It does not say the vetting system must be dismantled, the bilateral transit arrangements must be dissolved, the parliamentary toll bill must be withdrawn, or the formal sovereignty claim must be retracted. It addresses the symptom and ignores the infrastructure.

Iran’s five conditions are a mirror image of this gap. The first four conditions --- stop the war, guarantee non-repetition, pay reparations, extend the ceasefire to proxies --- are the framework within which negotiations operate. Condition 5 is the thing Iran wants to keep after the negotiations end. The ceasefire buys what the war built.

The incompatibility is architectural, not positional. “Free maritime zone” and “Iran’s exercise of sovereignty” are not two points on a spectrum where negotiators find a midpoint. They describe mutually exclusive legal regimes. One says transit is a right. The other says transit is a privilege Iran grants.

What survives

Wars end. The architecture installed during them often does not.

Iran will eventually stop fighting. The bilateral transit arrangements with China, India, Pakistan, Iraq, and Malaysia --- each one a diplomatic artifact in which a named sovereign state recognized Iran’s transit authority --- will remain on the record. The parliamentary toll bill, if passed, will remain on the statute books. The IMO and Security Council notifications will remain in the archives. The formal five-condition document issued today will remain as Iran’s stated diplomatic position. Araghchi’s statement to Wang Yi will remain in Xinhua’s records.

None of these require the war to continue in order to persist. They are not wartime measures. They are institutional facts that were installed during wartime.

Customary international law says Iran cannot claim what it is claiming. Iran’s operational record says it already exercises what it claims. The gap between the legal prohibition and the operational reality is the space in which Iran has constructed a permanent infrastructure of sovereignty assertion --- one that no ceasefire addresses, because the ceasefire negotiations are focused on nuclear sites and missiles.

The deal, if it comes, will address enrichment. It will address warheads. It may address missiles. It will not undo a formal sovereignty demand backed by twenty-five days of operational facts, five bilateral partnerships, a parliamentary bill, and diplomatic notifications to the IMO and the Security Council.

Iran is not negotiating for Hormuz. Iran is using the negotiations to keep Hormuz.

If the war ends, the claim persists. If the war continues, the claim strengthens. Both outcomes serve the same architecture --- and the architecture was the point.

Sources

- Solen