The United Nations Has a Blueprint for Opening the Strait of Hormuz
As shipping grinds to a halt and food and energy prices rise, the UN may have a tested diplomatic model for navigating the Hormuz standoff.
For the last two weeks, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt. This, of course, is one of the major transit points through which oil moves from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. As a consequence, oil prices are surging, as are food prices. And when food prices surge, the poorest people on the planet are the ones who go hungry first. On Tuesday, the World Food Programme warned that if oil prices remained above $100 a barrel, an unprecedented 45 million people could face acute food insecurity worldwide.
At the moment, there seems to be no way out. The United States and Israel are continuing their relentless bombing campaigns. Iran is retaliating against countries in the region and summoning the best geopolitical lever it has: preventing oil tankers from crossing the strait. As a result, the cost of food around the world is poised to go up—which, for millions of people, can mean not eating.
Believe it or not, this is familiar territory for the United Nations.
Back in early 2022, the world was faced with a similar dilemma following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which all but halted Ukrainian agricultural exports. That had a huge impact on global food supplies. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine accounted for roughly half of global sunflower oil exports and about 10–17% of global exports of wheat and maize. The shock to those supplies hit import-dependent regions especially hard, particularly the Middle East and parts of Africa, helping drive a global food price spike.
At issue was the inability of civilian cargo ships to collect Ukraine’s vast agricultural exports and deliver them to the rest of the world without fear of attack. In the early spring, the UN began to work behind the scenes to find a solution: what would become known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Under this agreement, merchant ships intending to pick up or offload Ukrainian grain would first transit to Turkey, where a team of Ukrainian, Russian, and Turkish inspectors would examine the ship under the watchful eye of UN officials. Once cleared, the ships could travel along an agreed maritime corridor without threat. The agreement worked: sufficient Ukrainian agricultural exports re-entered the world market, reducing a major strain on global food supplies. And Russia got what it wanted, too, with the lifting of restrictions on its own fertilizer and agricultural exports.
The context of the Black Sea in 2022 and the Strait of Hormuz in 2026 is different, but the outline the Black Sea Grain Initiative provides may show a path forward on Hormuz—and some key international diplomats are starting to take notice.
