Setting aside the law of the jungle — which holds that brute force is what imposes rights in relations between people — we ask, in a scientific and legal manner: is it permissible to impose fees on the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz?
The matter is governed by the international law of the sea convention, signed by most countries in the world, known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was adopted in December 1982 in Jamaica.
This convention is described as the "constitution of the oceans," as it regulates every detail of the rights and obligations of states in matters of maritime navigation.
The convention contains an explicit and clear provision known as transit passage, elaborated and detailed in Articles 37 through 45, which grants no state the right to interfere with passage through international straits or to impose transit fees on such passage.
The only situation in which financial costs may be claimed is when services are rendered in the event of a breakdown or emergency fuel supply — but there is absolutely no provision enshrining the right to impose any tariff or fee of any kind on passing vessels and tankers, nor to block or intercept them.
The recent demands we hear from Iran or President Trump to impose fees amount to "making the world bear the cost of the strange military conflict we have witnessed of late."
The logic of taking a strategic region hostage and bargaining with the world over it is the logic of excessive force, which has nothing to do with international law or the political norms that the post-World War II world has settled upon.