IRAN’S DIRE STRAITS

The latest set-to with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz has focused fresh attention on the Law of the Sea treaty, which urgently needs U.S. ratification by the Senate.

Iran has been invoking a twisted interpretation of the treaty to justify repeated harassment of American warships passing through the narrow passage into the Persian Gulf. On Jan. 6, five small Iranian speedboats swarmed toward three U.S. Navy ships making a routine transit of the channel. President Bush denounced the Iranian action as a “provocative act.” The warships were fully prepared to fend off any attack. The boats were only lightly armed, but the U.S. commanders wanted to avoid any repetition of the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole in nearby Yemen when a small boat loaded with explosives killed 17 sailors and nearly sank the Cole.

Questions quickly arose as to whether the confrontation occurred in Iran’s territorial waters. Iran said it did. But Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces, told Pentagon reporters that “we were at least 15 miles from Iranian-recognized land, so outside the 12-mile territorial waters – in international waters.” A look at an atlas shows that the strait is only 21 nautical miles wide. Iran’s 12-mile limit thus overlaps Oman’s 12-mile limit from the opposite shore. That appears to leave no room for international waters.

John Norton Moore, who directs the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at the University of Virginia, and who helped draft the treaty, says, in effect, that territorial waters have nothing to do with the case. He said in a telephone interview that the Navy ships had freedom of passage in the Strait of Hormuz and acted perfectly within their rights.

When the current version of the Law of the Sea was negotiated in 1982, professor Moore achieved a guarantee of international military access through the Strait of Hormuz and other strategic passages. Thus the treaty permits U.S. warships to pass through those straits unmolested and U.S. warplanes to fly over them without restrictions by the coastal states.

Iran contends that neither the United States nor Iran is bound by the terms of the treaty, since neither one has ratified although both have signed it. The U.S. contends the treaty terms are binding on all states as “customary international law.” Ratification of the treaty by the United States would strengthen its position and could persuade other nations to agree. Iran would be less able to argue that the treaty doesn’t apply to the Strait of Hormuz.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty on Oct. 31 by a vote of 17-4 and sent it to the full Senate for ratification. It has already been ratified by 143 nations. Now it is up to the Senate to debate the treaty, answer any remaining questions and objections, and vote to ratify it.