On July 19th 2019, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) detained the Stena Impero oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. At the point it was intercepted and boarded,
the Stena Impero was navigating through the entrance to the Strait within Omani
territorial waters. For two months, Iran held the ship and its crew, using them as
leverage to spark negotiations over the Iran Nuclear Deal and to force the United
Kingdom to release an Iranian Oil tanker that it had detained in early July. The parties
involved in this conflict constantly invoked overlapping areas of international law to
justify their actions and to accuse each other of unlawful behavior. In doing so, they
raised questions of the legality of Iran’s actions, the rights of oil tankers in the Strait,
and the potential recourses, if any, for the ship and crew. With the basis of the
precedent questions, this research is written and rendered. The topic of the research is
“Analysis Based on the International Law Regarding the Seizure of Stena Impero by
Iran”. The approachment is undertaken by the normative legal research. This research
result indicates that Iran has violated the UNCLOS 1982 regarding the transit passage
of the Stena Impero during its navigation throughout Strait of Hormuz and Iran has
misused the law of countermeasures when Iran through its IRGC, intercepts and
seizures the Stena Impero with the intention to retaliate UK’s act of seizing the
Adrian Darya in Gibraltar previously in early July. This research suggests that to hold
Iran accountable of its violating actions, the ultimately efficacious way is that
European Powers and Oman bring Iran to the table of negotiation regarding the Iran
Nuclear Deal with the additional conditions that Iran must undertake the reparations,
recourses and provide compensations for the damage of Stena Impero and its crews.