The Choking Point: How Strait of Hormuz Disruptions Impact Global Maritime Logistics, Law and Policy
Since the Iranian Revolution and overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, the Strait of Hormuz has been a geographic constant as a choke point for which closure has been threatened from time to time but never truly closed. The longstanding assumption of the continued openness of the strait collapsed on February 28, 2026.
In the weeks since Iran effectively shut the strait to commercial shipping in response to U.S. and Israeli military strikes and the U.S. established its own blockade, the global maritime transportation system has been forced into a rerouting effort of historic proportions. The consequences have rippled far beyond just oil and gas markets, exposing vulnerabilities in global supply chains and potentially threatening important aspects of the customary international law of the sea that are centuries upon centuries old.
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway—a little under 18 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point—that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the wider Arabian Sea. Before the current crisis, roughly 25 percent of the world's seaborne crude oil trade and roughly 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) transited the passage daily. Previously, on an average day well over 100 vessels moved through the strait carrying millions of barrels of oil, vast volumes of LNG, and significant quantities of petrochemicals and fertilizers. Asian economies—China, India, Japan, and South Korea—received the bulk of the crude oil transiting the strait, making it an arterial lifeline for the world’s most dynamic manufacturing economies.
Closure of the strait has made clear an uncomfortable truth: the $123 trillion global economy can be held hostage across a stretch of water just a few miles wide.
The crisis in the strait escalated rapidly after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran beginning on February 28, 2026. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued warnings forbidding commercial passage, boarded and attacked merchant ships, and laid mines throughout the strait. Within days, major ocean carriers suspended all transits. The IRGC confirmed the formal closure on March 2, 2026.
The situation devolved further when, following the collapse of diplomatic talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, the U.S. Navy imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports beginning April 13, 2026, creating what analysts came to call a “dual blockade.” Iran also began charging vessels tolls exceeding $1 million per ship for limited passage through Iranian-controlled corridors, further distorting normal commercial operations.
With both the Strait of Hormuz closed and the Bab al Mandeb Strait in and out of the Red Sea vulnerable to Houthi attacks, carriers have been left with only one alternative for Asia-Europe transit: the Cape of Good Hope route around southern Africa.
The Cape route adds 10 to 14 days to a typical Asia-Europe transit and significantly increases fuel consumption and other operating costs per voyage. Container shipping rates surged during the 2024 Red Sea crisis when the Cape route was last pressed into wide use, and the current disruption is far more severe. Traffic around the Cape has remained consistently elevated, with daily transits well above historical norms as operators commit to the longer but safer route.
The increased costs and transit times pose obvious supply chain challenges, but the real problem is capacity, particularly in the case of crude oil. All feasible bypass alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz combined, including the Cape route and Middle Eastern pipelines, can handle at most approximately 10 million barrels per day. Normal Hormuz throughput before the closure was estimated at 20 million barrels per day. Even if every bypass runs at maximum capacity simultaneously, a gap of at least 10 million barrels per day remains with no short-term solution.
Specific pipeline bypass routes do exist but are limited.
This is somewhat surprising given the fact that the Strait of Hormuz has loomed as a choke point over Western Persian Gulf countries’ economies since 1979. The UAE's Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) from Habshan to the port city of Fujairah was specifically built to bypass the strait, but at full capacity it can move roughly less than one-tenth of normal strait crude oil throughput. Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline connects Persian Gulf production to Yanbu on the Red Sea, providing an alternative crude export route. It was severely degraded in an attack in early April, but quickly restored to its full capacity of 7 million barrels per day. Iraq reportedly will reopen a long-dormant crude oil pipeline running from Kirkuk to Turkey's port of Ceyhan. It is thought to have a potential full capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day, but currently is said to have capacity to move only a quarter to a half million barrels per day.
On top of, and even more important than, the logistics challenges posed, the current Strait of Hormuz situation could have serious negative repercussions for what is well-settled customary international law regarding freedom of navigation and right of innocent passage.
The international law of the sea provides us with the rules that govern relationships between countries regarding the use and control of the sea and its resources. Until the 17th century, it was assumed that political control and even national sovereignty could be asserted over the sea. Particularly in ancient times, the Rhodians, Carthaginians, and Romans all actively sought to control the seas as far out from their shores as possible. For the Romans, at the height of their empire this amounted to attempted control over the entire Mediterranean Sea.
It was not until Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo De Groot wrote a book called Mare Liberum (the “Free Sea” or “Open Sea”) in 1608 that the seeds were sewn for what would become the legal doctrine of freedom of the seas. De Groot asserted that the seas are common property owned by all mankind and that ships of every nation have the freedom to navigate them. Others, most notably Englishman John Selden, argued that nations should establish sea frontiers, and that foreign vessels be allowed to sail in sovereign waters as a privilege rather than a right (“mare clausum”). Ultimately, De Groot’s freedom of the seas prevailed and became established doctrine under customary international law.
Because there is no lawgiver or true law enforcer at the international level, the international law of the sea really has one true source, which is the common will of countries. Most countries of the world have acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), with two notable exceptions being the United States and Iran. UNCLOS amounts to an affirmative restatement of customary international law and U.S. courts recognize much of it as such. Articles 37 and 38 of UNCLOS provide that in straits used for international navigation like the Strait of Hormuz, all ships enjoy a right of transit passage, which means the exercise of freedom of navigation solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit through the strait.
If, in our negotiations for the cessation of our attacks on Iran and an ultimate return to peace, we concede some authority or right of Iran to charge a toll to transit the Strait of Hormuz, the United States and the rest of the world will have lost a navigation right all nations have enjoyed for hundreds of years. Even worse is the precedential value of such a concession. What action might China take in the Strait of Taiwan? What action might Russia attempt in the Bering Strait? What of the Turkish Straits, the Strait of Malacca, the Bab al-Mandeb? The geopolitical, national security, and distortive economic and logistics implications are quite serious.
Let us hope that the United States and other nations of the world will reject such an idea outright if it raised.
About the Author: Jeffrey Lewis is a member at Cozen O’Connor and has over 30 years of extensive experience representing and advising clients, members of Congress, and federal agencies on a wide range of legislative, regulatory, and policy matters. He previously held senior leadership roles within the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
