Iran must pay for attacks on commercial shipping
https://arab.news/ge8py
The latest developments in the Gulf indicate that the Iranian regime is determined to pursue its hegemonic ambitions, military adventurism and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East more forcefully under the presidency of the hard-liner cleric Ebrahim Raisi. The regime will be more aggressive under its new president, who is also likely the country’s next supreme leader.
Just a few days before Raisi took office, an oil tanker, the MV Mercer Street, was attacked by a drone 280 km (170 miles) from the port of Al-Daqam in the Oman Sea. The assault turned deadly as two crew members, a British and a Romanian citizen, were killed in the drone attack.
In the wake of the strike, several countries, including the UK, Romania, Liberia and Israel, sent a letter to the UN Security Council blaming the Iranian regime for the attack. The countries pointed out in the letter: “This attack disrupted and posed a risk to the safety and security of international shipping and was a clear violation of international law. This act must be condemned by the international community.”
It is important to point out that this is not the first time that the Iranian regime has been implicated in attacking commercial oil tankers in recent years. For example, four tankers were targeted close to the port of Fujairah, off the coast of the UAE in May 2019. A month later, on June 13, 2019, two tankers crossing the Gulf of Oman were also sabotaged with explosives — one went up in flames and both were left adrift.
The two ships that were sabotaged were Japanese and Norwegian: The Japanese Kokuka Courageous and the Norwegian Front Altair. A few weeks later, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps became more emboldened and broadcast a video boasting how its commandos, wearing black ski masks and military fatigues, descended from a helicopter on to a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and seized the ship.
Intriguingly, the Iranian leaders have previously claimed responsibility for some of the attacks on commercial oil tankers. Iran’s Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told the semi-official Fars news agency that the seizure of the British tanker in 2019 was in retaliation for the British navy seizing an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar. He stated that it was aimed at confronting “the illegitimate economic war, and seizure of oil tankers is an instance of this rule and is based on international rights.” But he failed to mention that Tehran’s oil tanker was shipping oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
Orders to target commercial oil tankers and destabilize the Gulf most likely come from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei because he has the final say in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
By attacking commercial oil tankers, the Iranian leaders are breaching two crucial international laws. First, Iran’s aggressive behavior and assaults are a blatant violation of the UN General Assembly’s Definition of Aggression, which “calls on all states to refrain from all acts of aggression and other uses of force contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among states in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
This resolution clarifies that the following can be classed as acts of aggression: “The blockade of the ports or coasts of a state by the armed forces of another state,” and “an attack by the armed forces of a state on the land, sea or air forces, or marine and air fleets of another state.”
Second, the regime is violating the internationally recognized UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under part three of UNCLOS, “Straits Used For International Navigation,” Article 44, the agreement stipulates that: “States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and shall give appropriate publicity to any danger to navigation or over flight within or over the strait of which they have knowledge. There shall be no suspension of transit passage.”
UNCLOS also clarifies that transit passage means the “freedom of navigation and overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of the strait between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone.”
This highlights the fact that Iran is blatantly violating this customary international law on the freedom of navigation. It is worth noting that the theocratic establishment of Iran is a signatory to UNCLOS but has long refrained from ratifying it.
Orders to target commercial oil tankers and destabilize the Gulf most likely come from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei because he has the final say in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies.
The international community must hold the Iranian regime accountable for violating international maritime laws as it blatantly attacks commercial oil tankers.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
