As Keir Starmer continues his Gulf visit, foreign secretary says laws of the sea prevent Tehran from charging for passage of ‘international transit route’
Good morning. Keir Starmer is still in the Gulf, and Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has been doing a round of interviews this morning, ahead of delivering a speech on foreign policy this evening.
As Jamie Grierson reports, Cooper has been arguing forcefully that Lebanon must be included in the US-Iran ceasefire.
The starting point here is this is an international transit route. It’s international shipping that uses this. This is part of the international law of the sea. This is a a route between the high seas; it is a trading route.
As part of the international maritime law, this is a transit route between the high seas.
And whether you talk about Dover or Gibraltar or other straits around the world, there may be territorial waters there, but there’s also an international shipping route and an international transit route, which means that freedom of navigation principles apply and that countries cannot simply hijack those kinds of international transit routes and unilaterally apply tolls. They cannot do that as part of the laws of the sea and the United Nations conventions.
