The Military Coalition of "Operation Sentinel " and The Political-Legal Investigation of Iran-US Conflicts in The Persian Gulf

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) introduces a set of legal frameworks representing a synthesis of customary international norms and newly codified treaty-based regulations. These provisions constitute some of the Convention’s most notable innovations and were primarily formulated to reconcile the strategic-military interests of major powers with the national security concerns, territorial integrity, and economic resource protection of developing and underdeveloped States. Key provisions of the Convention, such as those related to transit passage and the breadth of the territorial sea, have generated significant challenges for non-signatory States due to their partial divergence from established norms of customary international law. One prominent challenge, inherently political in nature, pertains to the divergent interpretations—either expansive or restrictive—of the right of transit passage and the measurement of the territorial sea. These legal ambiguities have gained heightened importance in the context of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint of exceptional global economic significance. Since 2019, a new geopolitical configuration has emerged. This contrasts with the earlier phase of the “Tanker War” in the Persian Gulf, which was largely confined to operational-military confrontations between the United States, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States, and Iran. Within the framework of Operation Sentinel, a multilateral maritime security initiative, the conflict has assumed a transregional and international dimension. This study, using doctrinal legal research methods (library-based analysis), seeks to explore the following question under the hypothetical assumption of Iran’s accession to UNCLOS: What legal strategies and mechanisms are available to Iran in response to operational measures that could potentially escalate into serious conflict within the Strait of Hormuz.