In the wake of the forty-day war between Iran and the United States-Israel, no one expected that the governing legal regime of the Strait of Hormuz would undergo a fundamental transformation. Tehran’s stance, emerging from the recent war, is not be a return to the previous legal order of free transit, but rather a fundamental reorientation of rights and responsibilities within this chokepoint. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly and Iranian top negotiator after the demise of Ayatollah Khamanei, has emphasised the Islamic Republic’s complete control over the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic chokepoint. He reiterated: “Traffic through this passage will only be carried out based on designated routes and with Iran’s permission. The opening […]