Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXV–
Rules For Thee, Not For Me.
An ‘interesting’ facet of the ever-evolving conflict between the United States of America and Iran (what I’ve been referring to for sometime as Schrodinger’s War) is the transit of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and what its disruption has done to the global economy and will do to our global society’s fragile and just-in-time complexities.
While the oft-repeated primary reason given by the U.S. and Israel for the initiation of this latest conflagration of conflict is the claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons (a charge most outside of–and including some within–the U.S./Israel argue is untrue), the ability of cargo ships to move through these waters has moved up the list of rationalisations/justifications for increased military presence and pressure by the U.S. on Iran.
In this Contemplation, I want to explore this aspect a bit and then tie it into my previous Contemplations on “Good Government” (See: Part 1 (Website Medium Substack); Part 2 (Website Medium Substack); Part 3 (Website Medium Substack))
[A note on focus: I deliberately examine one side of an asymmetrical ledger within this Contemplation. The United States was the architect and most vehement supporter of the ‘rules-based order’ when introduced in the shadow of the Second World War, so it is American hypocrisy that most starkly contradicts the universalist language used to justify military pressure, economic sanctions, and naval blockades. Other powerful states such as China and Russia have their own records of instrumental legalism, selective compliance, and coercive action. Discussing their double standards would require an equally lengthy article. This acknowledgement does not weaken the critique of the US but confirms that the disorder is structural. The rest of this Contemplation, therefore, is not a condemnation that it is only the US that behaves hypocritically but that any state which positions itself as the indispensable guarantor of a rules-based order needs to be measured against its own standards—and measured that way, Washington is found decidedly wanting.]
International Law
In 1982, the United Nations passed the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In the eyes of many it was a compromise between national sovereignty and the international community. Coastal states would be provided resource rights over waters up to 200 nautical miles (or more) from their coastline while passage through strategic chokepoints would be guaranteed for any international shipping. The legal foundation of this agreement, however, was predicated upon less than solid ground as the following discussion will argue.
International law and treaties are founded upon the idea of promoting peace and security among and between nation states through agreed-upon ‘rules’ that avoid the arbitrary application of power. History, however, has shown that when the obligations of such laws and treaties are ‘inconvenient’ to powerful states, they are ignored, exposing a fundamental contradiction between the ‘promises’ of a rules-based international order and the reality of unaccountable power.
It’s important here to note that not all international law suffers from what has just been pointed out. In technical, low-stakes domains—postal services, aviation safety—treaties tend to function smoothly because they align with mutual convenience and carry little geopolitical weight. This only underscores the cynicism at the core of the system: cooperation flourishes exactly where no vital interest is threatened. It is when strategic chokepoints, military dominance, and energy flows intersect that the pathology discussed above emerges. Even UNCLOS has delivered some measurable benefits despite its flawed enforcement abilities—Pacific island states with minimal naval power, for example, have been able to secure resource rights over vast economic zones. Yet such successes are the exception that proves the rule; they occur only where great-power interests are not directly challenged, and they are tolerated precisely because they help sustain the illusion of a functioning system. It is in the high-stakes arenas—such as that highlighted in this Contemplation—where the structural double standard becomes unmistakable.
International Waterways and Straits
What constitutes an international waterway is based not simply upon a borderline on a map but on geography, function, and treaties. According to the 1949 Corfu Channel decision of the International Court of Justice, a strait is considered an international waterway when it connects two parts of the high seas and is used for international navigation. Such waterways are then subject to “transit passage’: unimpeded navigation without fees and that cannot be suspended by coastal states even during times of armed conflict.
Man-made waterways differ in that they can charge tolls or fees to help support costs. And there also exist a few natural straits that operate under pre-UNCLOS treaties that allow ‘service charges”–a reality some argue are tolls disguised as service charges; for example, Turkey charges fees for passage through the Turkish Straits stating they help to pay for lighthouse and pilotage services. This demonstrates the porousness of treaties and definitions, loopholes that powerful nations tend to exploit when convenient.
Maritime Zones
Full sovereignty extends 12 nautical miles from a state’s coastline, subject to ‘innocent passage’ rules. Customs and immigration enforcement can reach 24 miles, while a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone grants resource rights without full territorial control. Beyond that lie the high seas. The central friction arises when an international shipping lane sits entirely within territorial waters—placing sovereignty and transit rights on a collision course.
The Optionality of Treaties
There exists no supreme sovereign to compel compliance with international treaties. While the International Court of Justice can issue rulings, there is no police force to enforce them. The United Nations Security Council can authorise action but the veto power of permanent members can nullify it. This structural weakness allows powerful states to ignore any legal obligations that might exist; and ignoring international laws, rulings, and treaty obligations is the birthright of the powerful, not an aberration.
The Strait of Hormuz
The US has demanded that Iran guarantee unimpeded travel to all ships transiting the strait as it is an international waterway. Because it is covered under the ‘transit passage’ definition of international law, it does not matter that the US and Israel are conducting military actions against Iran–action that most experts consider illegal.
It’s important to note that neither Iran nor the US are signatories to the UNCLOS treaty, allowing each to choose which aspects it finds favourable. Iran considers the “innocent passage” application where passage can be suspended. The US, on the other hand, insists that “transit passage” is the appropriate view and as a result of Iran’s insistence upon limiting and/or charging tolls have instituted a naval blockade–itself a violation of the UN charter on the prohibition of any unilateral use of force (also see the US’s 66-year blockade of Cuba).
The asymmetry of the situation is even worse. The US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA—a multilateral nuclear agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council—and imposed extraterritorial sanctions. Separately, the ICJ ruled that those sanctions violated the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran. The US responded to the ruling by merely dismissing it as irrelevant, because why would a predator acknowledge the judgment of its prey?
American Treaty Defiance
This situation is not novel to the current US administration/regime. The US has shown it has no problem rejecting, withdrawing from, or ignoring international legal agreements over the decades. Here is a list of just a few such examples.
Despite accepting most of its provisions as customary, the US never ratified UNCLOS (1982). It withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (2001) in order to build missiles, supposedly for defensive purposes. Citing Russian non-compliance, it withdrew from the 2019 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Rejected and withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol (2001) and the Paris Agreement (announced 2017, effective 2020; and, depending on future electoral outcomes, possibly again). Refused to sign the Rome Statute and recognise the International Criminal Court (2002), passing instead the American Service-Members’ Protection Act authorising the US to use military force to free detained US personnel. While signing, it never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, standing virtually alone amongst all UN members. Rejected the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling that it had used unlawful force against Nicaragua (1986), and then blocked the UN Security Council’s enforcement. In a 2018 case brought by Iran against the US, the ICJ ordered sanctions relief for humanitarian goods leading the US to withdraw from the treaty allowing the case. There have been more recent World Trade Organisation rulings on steel tariffs and the Inflation Reduction Act that the US has simply ignored or blocked the final rulings through appeal.
The US is also not shy to veto UN Security Council resolutions (especially those that criticise Israel and attempt to condemn its settlements, annexations, and military actions) and has done so dozens of times.
Rules-Based Order
The rules that get championed by powerful nations almost always tend to be the ones that serve their interests; those that do not are typically discarded. Turkey’s ‘service fees’ for passage in the Turkish Straits are tolerated since it is a NATO member, but Iran’s similar demands in light of military aggression are condemned. For its navy and business-related shipping, the US insists on the interpretation of unimpeded ‘transit passage’ but conveniently ignores ICJ rulings and WTO decisions that do not favour its interests.
Routine disputes and common language for negotiations between states relies upon the law of the sea. When the stakes are high (e.g., nuclear proliferation, strategic chokepoints, regional hegemony) the weaknesses of the system are clear, however. There is no mechanism in place to enforce compliance with an ICJ ruling or to honour a treaty it has withdrawn from for a permanent Security Council member.
International law is a human artifact, and like all human institutions it mirrors the brutal inequalities of the societies that created it. The geographic chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz is a mirror clearly showing the contradictions of the rules-based order. Powerful nations demand that others follow rules that they themselves treat as optional window-dressing for raw coercion.
A possible objection deserves a direct answer: this entire critique draws its moral force from the very norms it claims are hollow—citing UNCLOS, the UN Charter, and ICJ rulings as standards the United States violates. That is precisely the point. Hypocrisy is impossible to name without a standard, and the standard being used here is the one Washington itself proclaims. Exposing the gap between proclaimed rule and actual practice is not a repudiation of those norms; it is an immanent critique that judges the system by its own promises. The problem is not that the rules exist. It is that, in the hands of the dominant, they are reduced to optional decorations—and the international community applauds the décor while the house burns.
Through the Lens of ‘Good Government’
Previous analysis of the idea of ‘Good Government’ has argued that the belief in governing institutions existing to serve the collective good is a myth and collapses once one examines how states actually behave. The dialogue concerning international waterways, maritime zones, and the US’s long history of defying treaties may appear on the surface as a technical discussion of legal ambiguities, but it is actually a case study in the myth of ‘good government’. US actions with regard to the conflict with Iran is a perfect example of the ‘Conflict Theory’ in practice: international law is being used as a tool of elite interests and being selectively employed to legitimise advantage and obscure exploitation.
Those who support a rules-based international order are weaving a narrative based upon the ‘Integrationist Theory’ whereby sovereign states in recognising the mutual benefits of nations cooperating and submitting to treaties have the goals of peace and stability for all of humanity as their primary motivation. A benevolent and rational system working for all. What’s not to love?
Well…
As the discussion above demonstrates, the United States (actually the architect of much of this international rules-based order through its powerful position after the Second World War) has repeatedly withdrawn from, actively undermined, or ignored the institutions it helped to create and oversee this global arrangement.
It has not ratified UNCLOS while claiming as customary law those provisions that favour US commerce. It has rejected ICJ rulings. It has withdrawn from ‘problematic’ treaties. It has vetoed scores of UN Security Council resolutions. It has ignored WTO rulings.
This is the rule for the US, not a pattern of unfortunate exceptions.
International Law and Elite Power
As earlier analysis has argued, governing institutions arose through exploitation and coercion to serve a ruling elite, with any benefits that trickled down to the masses an incidental by-product of systems designed to protect elite interests. International law operates in the same fashion: the ‘elite’ are powerful states—primarily the US and its compliant/complicit allies—and the transnational capitalist class whose energy flows, supply chains, and financial systems depend on the stability of maritime passage. Everyone else is expected to keep the machinery running.
The Strait of Hormuz conflict is a perfect example of this. The US is demanding ‘transit passage’ under a treaty it has not ratified while itself maintaining a naval blockade in violation of the UN Charter. Iran is demanding tolls for transit as it leverages an important shipping chokepoint. Both sides in this conflict are invoking legal principles to support their positions while ignoring those that go against their wishes. The ‘loophole’ that allows Turkey (a NATO member) to demand tolls—sorry, service charges—is the kind of ambiguity that powerful states exploit when they ‘profit’ but condemn when they don’t.
The bureaucracy of international institutions often functions, whether by design or by structural incentive, in a way that reinforces the appearance of a functional and fair rules-based order. International civil servants produce commentary, draft protocols, and issue rulings; many—not all—are ignored when they trouble powerful states. Challenging the theatre is not rewarded, and those who do risk being dismissed as radicals or cynics. The point is not that the individuals involved are consciously conspiring, but that their institutional roles chain them to a system whose legitimacy gaps their careers depend on glossing over.
It’s the Growth Imperative…
The primary legitimising narrative by modern states is perpetual economic growth. Governments in virtually every state and at every level market economic growth as the means of ensuring prosperity for all. Its true function, however, is to enrich the ruling elite and maintain status quo wealth and power hierarchies.
Critical to such growth are international waterways. About 80% of global trade transits via our seas with chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz (20% of oil), Suez (12% of all trade), and Malacca (33% of all trade) serving as the circulatory systems of the global economy. Controlling these waterways, therefore, provides control over such growth itself. And while the narrative of ‘freedom of navigation’ is a lovely sentiment that aids the elite in justifying certain actions, insistence upon unimpeded transit passage for vessels through chokepoints is significantly vital to the US, its allies, and the transnational corporations they serve in order to keep the resources and products of the growth imperative moving.
‘Freedom of navigation operations’ that the US Navy periodically carries out are not legal exercises but displays of force to remind nations who establishes and reinforces the rules, the US.
As noted in earlier Contemplations, history has shown that as resource extraction becomes increasingly difficult and costly, and as credit-money creation faces both inflationary and deflationary traps, the elite tend to tighten their grip on society and its revenue-generating systems. The world has already witnessed such actions with the release of petroleum reserves to support industrial systems, the militarisation of the Arctic as ice melts and waterways and resource extraction potential open up, and deep-sea mining nodules in the Pacific becoming attractive. A little known UN body (The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf) is another indicator of the geopolitical rivalry occurring over resources as discussions on the extension of continental shelves to 350 nautical miles takes place.
Overton Windows and Narrative Management
I also raise on occasion how the elite manipulate language and control debate over these issues, and this is particularly true when discussing international law. The term often thrown about when ‘freedom of navigation’ is imperiled is that of a ‘rules-based order’, especially by the US and its allies. This phrase sounds very neutral and inclusive on the surface and avoids the more precise ‘treaty-based’ or ‘UN Charter-based’ terminology, but its true intent is to allow powerful states to claim certain ‘rules’ are customary/binding while others are aspirational/subject to discretion.
Neither politicians nor legacy media tend to point out that perhaps the US should ratify UNCLOS and submit to international rulings regarding disputes. No one questions if UN Security Council vetoes are compatible with the rule of law. The Overton Window prescribes what is and what is not acceptable in order to ensure such challenges are excluded from discussions.
The elite also tend to scapegoat when needed. Resource shortages and economic contractions are typically blamed on uncontrollable circumstances, external enemies, and/or internal others. Within the maritime context, Iran is being portrayed as a pirate state for enforcing its own passage rights interpretation while US actions such as the naval blockade are framed as enforcement of international norms and ensuring global stability. The vocabulary used is not neutral but that of power.
Chaos Protector
The same analysis suggests we are likely to witness a shift in legitimising narrative by the ruling elite from one of ‘abundance provider’ to one of ‘chaos protector’ as competition over resources grows. The elite will reinforce the story that they are the primary protection against the growing disorder of the world. And we are witnessing an early version of this with the situation in the Middle East.
The US implemented and led Operation Prosperity Guardian when Red Sea shipping was disrupted, arguing that it was to protect global trade from terrorists. The subtext was that this U.S.-led naval coalition, dominated by American forces, was to maintain access to the Suez Canal and prevent global inflation. The deeper dynamic is this: as resource competition grows, every chokepoint across the planet will become a potential flashpoint with the state shifting towards managing scarcity and away from providing abundance; declaring exclusion zones, rationing passage rights, and convoy escorts will become the norm.
I have little doubt that the elite will not hesitate to escalate conflict to maintain their control. War is on the horizon as economies contract and resource shortages grow. The South China Sea is another flashpoint where US ‘freedom of navigation’ patrols regularly confront the Chinese around their artificial islands. The legal arguments by both sides are the surface indicators while below this lies a competition over trillions of dollars in trade, massive fisheries, and unexploited resources (especially hydrocarbons). Elite revenue streams for both the East and West depend greatly on who controls these waters, so escalation is virtually guaranteed. And although the shipping disruptions will impact all human systems, it should not be forgotten that the East, far more than the West, depends significantly on the hydrocarbon resource flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Conclusion
The evidence suggests that without a much deeper shift in power dynamics, no single change in US administration, new treaty, or round of UN reform is likely to produce genuine global cooperation. Humanity’s most powerful actors—whether executives of Big Energy, defence contractors, or financial institutions—benefit handsomely from the status quo and have little incentive to embrace arrangements that do not secure their revenue streams and privileged positions. Occasional constraints do arise when domestic pressure and economic interests align, but counting on such occasional friction to protect those without institutional leverage is a poor survival strategy.
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz is a mirror for all this. We are not witnessing the application of a rules-based order designed to benefit all of humanity; we are witnessing a predator state—like many that have marauded through history—wrapping itself in legal piety to extort sacrifice from those who hold no power, while it services those who do. The most honest, and perhaps most effective, response is to invest energy in building resilient local networks less exposed to the disruptions elite competition produces.
The Strait of Hormuz holds up a mirror: what we see is not a global order working for all, but a dominant predator power costumed in legal language to sanctify violence and control. Recognising that is not cynicism; it is the necessary first step toward clear-eyed local action.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better. Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.”
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