Executive Summary

The Strait of Hormuz crisis of 2026, arising from the US-Israel military campaign against Iran, and the US military operations against Venezuela that began the previous year, raise some of the most complex and consequential legal questions in contemporary energy law. This article examines the law-of-the-sea and law-of-naval-warfare questions these events raise, in four parts. Section II considers the status of transit passage through the Strait under UNCLOS, the lawfulness of Iranian attacks on neutral shipping, the legality and continuing enforcement of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, the legality of the sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena within Sri Lanka's exclusive economic zone, Iran's evolving toll regime and its bilateral negotiation with Oman over a possible Malacca-style fee, the compound violation raised by Iranian strikes on shipping inside Omani territorial waters, the legal basis for the European-led escort and mine-clearance mission and its dependence on the outcome of that same negotiation, and the legally distinct closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait by the non-state Houthi movement. Section III asks whether the seizure of foreign-flagged tankers carrying Venezuelan- and Iranian-linked crude is properly characterised as piracy, an analogous violation, or contested sanctions enforcement, identifies the fora in which that question might be tested, and examines the implications of the Trump administration's campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court for that accountability route. Section IV evaluates the seizure of Venezuelan oil against the doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, weighing the sanctions-evasion and ‘shadow fleet’ conduct the United States has invoked to justify its own actions; considers the legality of the Maduro capture operation under the Article 2(4) prohibition on the use of force and the law of head-of-state immunity; and examines Operation Southern Spear, the sustained campaign of lethal strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels, against the threshold requirements for a non-international armed conflict and the law of armed conflict's shipwreck-protection obligations. Section V draws on econometric evidence of shipping-disruption risk to frame, and quantify, the scale of the resulting economic harm.

Section VI considers counterarguments, including the jus ad bellum justification the United States has advanced for the Iran war specifically, as distinct from the separate legal basis for its operation against Venezuela, and the consistency of its position on freedom of navigation elsewhere. Section VII sets out a reform agenda calibrated to the preceding analysis, combining international mechanisms, financial-centre asset recovery, and a contributory-causation methodology for damages claims.