A London-based think-tank has issued a report proposing that the eight countries bordering on the Persian Gulf should treat the Strait of Hormuz as common property and manage it for their mutual benefit. The proposal is modeled on the European Coal and Steel Community between France and Germany in the 1950’s that later expanded to include four other countries.
The report, published by the London-based Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, proposes a minimal fee for passage through the Strait of Hormuz that would be paid by very large tankers carrying export cargoes. They estimate that the fees would bring in $26 million to $60 million that would be paid, not to Iran or Oman, but rather to an administrative body that would provide navigation, safety and environment services on behalf of the shared interests of all eight countries that lie around the Persian Gulf.
Such fees would be economically insignificant but “the diplomatic value of the fee could be enormous,” the report’s authors write. “The suggestion that there exists some multilateral arrangement to manage the strait is inherently constructive. It represents an opportunity to institutionalize regional cooperation in ways that recognize the shared interests of all eight Gulf littoral states.”
The institution that would manage the fees matters more than the fee itself, the report argues. “It is the institution that helps regional countries move towards shared responsibility for a critical aspect of regional security and economic activity, building trust through its iterative operation,” it says.
The historical antecedent that the report cites as a model for their proposal is the European Coal and Steel Community between France and Germany in the 1950’s that later expanded to include four other countries. “The joint administration of the Strait of Hormuz can be for the eight littoral states of the Gulf what the European Coal and Steel Community was for postwar Europe,” the authors write. “It offers the opportunity to institutionalize regional cooperation over a critical modality of trade in ways that build trust and help foster greater regional cooperation.”
The Bourse & Bazaar Foundation describes itself as “a think-tank committed to economic development, economic diplomacy, and economic justice in West and Central Asia.”
