International Maritime Organization

When Oman authorised a UK-French mine-clearance mission on its southern Hormuz route shortly before 7 July, the IMO put the number of stranded ships needing evacuation before clearance work could begin at roughly 500, the gating figure a same-day tanker attack then pushed back before clearance started.

The stall leaves RFA Lyme Bay, the autonomous minehunter RNMB Ariadne and HMS Dragon waiting in Omani waters for a start order. It shows the IMO's evacuation tally, not the mines themselves, now sets the pace of the mission clearing them, an authority the organisation has no power to enforce inside IRGC-controlled water.

The IMO launched a coordinated evacuation of roughly 11,000 stranded seafarers from the Persian Gulf on 23 June, after 14 deaths during months of closure, working state-to-state with Iran, Oman and the United States.

Two days later the IRGC Navy declared the Oman-IMO corridor unacceptable and dangerous, ordering vessels instead to coordinate with it directly on VHF Channel 16, a direct challenge to the IMO's own navigational authority that has Left the legal status of Hormuz passage in contest ever since.

The IMO adopted the first global rules for crewless cargo ships on 22 May at its MSC 111 session in London, and the non-mandatory MASS Code entered force as scheduled on 1 July 2026, keeping a human master legally responsible from ashore with a mandatory framework targeted for 1 January 2032.

The Experience Building Phase framework that is meant to fill the code's detail will not be developed until the Maritime Safety Committee meets as MSC 112 in December 2026, and classification societies DNV and Lloyd's Register already certify autonomous vessels under their own rules in the meantime, a divergence risk the IMO has flagged but not yet closed.