Hormuz Needs a Community, Not a Condominium

Center for Strategic and International Studies | Raad Alkadiri

Iran and Oman are negotiating a temporary seven-mile-wide transit corridor through the Strait of Hormuz to reopen the critical oil choke point, but the bilateral deal excludes other regional stakeholders and risks formalising Iranian maritime control. Under the proposed framework, inbound traffic would route through Iranian waters, while warships would be entirely excluded from the strategic waterway.

This bilateral condominium arrangement would replace the traffic separation scheme that has governed the channel since 1968. The exclusion of Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar threatens their energy export security, as Qatar relies entirely on the 21-mile channel for its liquefied natural gas shipments. Although Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates possess bypass pipelines, these infrastructures carry only 25 percent of prewar volumes. To mitigate these risks, a multilateral Hormuz Community modeled on the 1950 Schuman Declaration could pool resource management under Article 43 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Tensions remain high.

Comment

The proposed bilateral transit corridor between Muscat and Tehran exposes the limits of relying on ad hoc arrangements to govern the Strait of Hormuz. By bypassing the International Maritime Organization traffic separation scheme, this framework risks establishing a precedent where coastal states unilaterally rewrite transit rights. Such a shift directly challenges the legal protections established under UNCLOS Article 43, which advocates for cooperative multilateral governance rather than bilateral condominiums. This transition would formalise the Persian Gulf Strait Authority as a regulatory gatekeeper, transforming a wartime contingency into a permanent administrative mechanism.

A historical parallel exists in the 1936 Montreux Convention, which successfully balanced Turkish sovereignty with international shipping rights in the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Unlike the proposed Muscat-Tehran condominium, that treaty established a durable legal regime by codifying the rights of both Black Sea and non-littoral states under a clear international framework. Implementing a similar multilateral treaty for the Strait of Hormuz would prevent the Persian Gulf Strait Authority from imposing arbitrary transit fees on international shipping.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If the Persian Gulf Strait Authority successfully establishes unilateral tolling in the Strait of Hormuz, how would this alter the legal precedent for other vital maritime chokepoints governed by international transit regimes?

The successful imposition of unilateral tolls by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority would likely weaken the foundational principles of transit passage under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This development could encourage other coastal states flanking critical chokepoints, such as the Bab-el-Mandeb, to assert similar regulatory and financial control over international shipping lanes. My assessment is that such a shift would fragment global maritime law, replacing multilateral conventions with a series of transactional, state-administered toll zones.

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