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The UK’s mine countermeasures force arrived this week, RFA Lyme Bay and 270+ personnel, to clear dozens of mines still in Hormuz’s former shipping lanes. But the industry wants more than clearing: it wants routes ‘independently verified as safe.’ Clearing is engineering; certifying is governance, and it is the harder of the two. A temporary coalition can verify a sweep today; only a standing authority can keep the strait certified clear tomorrow and every day after. This post reads the clearing-versus-certifying gap.

PM Mitsotakis called Iran’s Hormuz tolls completely unacceptable on 8 April. Nine days later a Greek owned VLCC, the Atokos, transited the strait by paying Iran. Greek shipowners hold roughly 20 percent of world merchant tonnage. The gap between diplomatic rejection and commercial payment is exactly what a legitimate multilateral authority resolves.