International law R.I.P.

Two main casualties from the Iran war are international institutions and longstanding legal principles, as seen by Opec's slow disintegration and Iran insisting on control of the strait of Hormuz.

On both sides of the Persian Gulf, the old international order and system is under threat. Iraq is the latest big oil producer to consider peeling off from Opec, a hybrid between a traditional cartel and multinational organisation that was a defining institution of the last century. In the strait of Hormuz, the basic principles of maritime navigation ar…