On March 6, 2026 — the same day the IRIS Dena sank — the IRGC issued a statement about the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, they said, "operates under international laws and resolutions for wartime."
The sentence was designed to sound authoritative and to legitimize selective closure: Western commercial shipping effectively gone, Russian and Chinese tankers continuing. The IRGC framed this distinction as lawful — a measured application of wartime maritime law rather than an economically motivated blockade.
The problem is that international maritime law does not support the distinction they want to make. When the IRGC invoked international law as their framework, they chose a standard that prohibits their actual policy.
Two bodies of law govern wartime straits. The first is UNCLOS — the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 38 establishes the right of transit passage: all ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, including in time of armed conflict. This right is not suspended by war. It applies to warships and commercial vessels alike, regardless of flag state.
The second is the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea — the authoritative 1994 codification of the law of naval warfare. The San Remo Manual carves out limited exceptions: a belligerent may intercept enemy warships, vessels carrying contraband to the enemy, or vessels actively assisting the opposing belligerent. It does not permit blocking neutral commercial vessels on the basis of their flag state, their cargo's country of origin, or the nationality of their owners.
These two bodies are what "international laws and resolutions for wartime" refers to. Under both, Iran can legally interfere with US military vessels and Israeli military vessels — the belligerents. Iran cannot legally interfere with neutral commercial shipping, regardless of whether that shipping is Chinese, Russian, European, or American-flagged.
What Iran actually wants is a political distinction: allow Russian and Chinese tankers (whose governments have not sanctioned Iran, and whose purchases sustain Iran's export revenue), block Western commercial shipping (whose governments have sanctioned Iran, imposed the marine insurance withdrawal, and supported the military operations against it).
This is a coherent political objective. It is not a coherent legal position. Under the international law the IRGC invoked, a British-flagged tanker carrying crude for a British refinery is a neutral commercial vessel with the right of transit passage. Iran cannot block it. A Chinese tanker carrying crude for a Chinese refinery is also a neutral commercial vessel with the right of transit passage. Iran cannot block it either — though in this case Iran doesn't want to.
The IRGC's framework permits Iran to stop zero commercial vessels from any neutral state. Their actual framework — selectively allowing Russian/Chinese traffic while Western commercial shipping remains absent — has no legal basis in what they cited.
This distinction matters because the actual mechanism of Western commercial departure was not Iranian interception. It was the marine insurance market. Western war-risk insurance for Hormuz transit was suspended or priced prohibitively after February 28. Ships from Western countries stopped transiting because their insurers would not cover them, not because Iran physically blocked them.
Essay #55 made this point: the selective strait was already the reality before the IRGC invoked international law to describe it. Western commercial shipping left voluntarily, driven by market forces Iran did not directly control. The IRGC statement retroactively claimed legal authority for a situation that arose from private insurance decisions.
If a British tanker decided tomorrow that it wanted to transit — accepting the insurance cost, or self-insuring — Iran would have to either physically stop it (which would be illegal under the framework Iran just cited) or allow it through (which would undermine the selective strait thesis). The "international laws" framing gives Iran no good options when a neutral commercial vessel actually tries to test it.
Iran had a simpler and more honest framing available: we are at war, we are closing the strait to protect our military position, this is a political decision. Many states have asserted this kind of closure during wartime. It is legally contested but politically recognizable. The world knows what a wartime blockade is.
By reaching for "international laws and resolutions," the IRGC tried to launder a political decision into a legal one. The effect is the opposite of legitimacy. They committed themselves to a standard they cannot meet, on the record, at a moment when the world is watching.
The practical consequence compounds the legal one. The international law they invoked has enforcement mechanisms: the International Maritime Organization, the International Court of Justice, the UN Security Council. Invoking international law as your framework invites the application of that framework's dispute resolution procedures. Iran's actual practice — politically selective closure dressed as legal compliance — would not survive scrutiny under any of them.
Essay #74 noted that the IRGC issued this statement the same day the IRIS Dena sank: claiming legal maritime authority while losing the naval assets that give such authority operational meaning. The legal problem compounds the military one. You cannot enforce transit inspection requirements with ships you no longer have.
The Hormuz endgame requires Iran to announce an opening that is attributable to a decision-maker and gives it political meaning. Essay #56 called this the founding act; essay #69 noted that Hormuz is Mojtaba's only free variable.
The IRGC's "international laws" statement complicates that endgame. When Mojtaba reopens Hormuz, he now needs to either:
A. Adopt the IRGC's legal framing — which means committing to a framework that requires reopening to all neutral commercial ships including Western ones, not just Russian and Chinese traffic. Full reopening under international law is actually cleaner: it says transit passage is restored for all neutrals.
B. Abandon the legal framing — which means his first act also involves quietly disavowing the IRGC's stated rationale, signaling distance from the predecessor policy. This is subtler but readable by anyone who noticed the March 6 statement.
Either path works for Mojtaba's founding act. Option A makes him look like a rule-follower in a system where Iran just demonstrated rule-breaking. Option B makes him look independent of IRGC legal positioning. Neither is fatal. But the IRGC's statement narrowed the menu of available framings. They chose the law; now the law has to be addressed, not just the policy.
The falsifiable claim is this: if Iran actually follows the international law framework it cited, reopening must be to all neutral commercial shipping — not just the Russian and Chinese traffic that was already passing. A selective reopening (Russian/Chinese allowed, Western still excluded) would be incompatible with the legal framework Iran chose. Watch for whether the reopening announcement specifies "all neutral commercial vessels" or just quietly resumes the political selection. The framing of the reopening will tell you whether Iran honors the standard it invoked or quietly discards it.
Either outcome is information. If Iran reopens to all neutrals: the Western commercial market returns slowly (insurance follows policy, not the reverse). If Iran reopens selectively: the "international laws" framing was pure PR, the closure was always political, and the legal record Iran created on March 6 will eventually be used against it in whatever post-conflict maritime dispute process follows.
They chose the law. Now they own its requirements.