The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) has voiced grave con­cern over es­ca­lat­ing hos­til­i­ties in the Mid­dle East, par­tic­u­lar­ly mil­i­tary ac­tion in the Strait of Hor­muz. Cari­com high­light­ed the se­vere hu­man­i­tar­i­an toll, threats to civ­il in­fra­struc­ture, and the desta­bi­liz­ing im­pact on glob­al mar­kets caused by the con­flict.

The Strait of Hor­muz, a vi­tal artery for in­ter­na­tion­al mar­itime trans­port, has seen sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion. Cari­com un­der­scored that the right of tran­sit pas­sage through the strait is guar­an­teed un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Law of the Sea (UN­C­LOS). The or­ga­ni­za­tion stressed that this right should not be sub­ject to li­cens­es, levies, or au­tho­riza­tions, and must not be ob­struct­ed by bor­der­ing states. Such in­ter­rup­tions, Cari­com warned, re­ver­ber­ate across the glob­al econ­o­my, af­fect­ing en­er­gy mar­kets, sup­ply chains, and freight costs. Small im­port-de­pen­dent states are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to these shocks, fac­ing lim­it­ed ac­cess to es­sen­tial sup­plies.

Cari­com reaf­firmed that all its Mem­ber States are par­ties to UN­C­LOS and re­main com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing its prin­ci­ples. The state­ment em­pha­sized that the rights con­ferred by UN­C­LOS are en­trenched in cus­tom­ary in­ter­na­tion­al law and are bind­ing on all states, re­gard­less of for­mal mem­ber­ship. Cari­com urged all par­ties in­volved in the con­flict to re­spect the right of tran­sit pas­sage, com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions, and re­store safe and unim­ped­ed nav­i­ga­tion through the strait. The safe­ty of sea­far­ers and ves­sels, it added, must be pri­or­i­tized.