The Argentine Government has given the United Kingdom two weeks to stop oil work in the waters around the Falkland Islands or face proceedings at an international maritime court.
A statement issued on September 28 by the office of President Javier Milei said Argentina had formally served notice on Britain to halt the start or continuation of hydrocarbon activity on what Buenos Aires calls the Argentine continental shelf. The deadline expires around October 12.
If London does not comply, Argentina said it would ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, based in Hamburg, for provisional measures to protect the sovereign rights it claims over the seabed.
Milei has also instructed the foreign ministry and government lawyers to open arbitration under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, targeting the Sea Lion project in the North Falkland Basin and any further exploitation licences.
Sea Lion lies about 220km north of the islands and is being developed by Britain’s Rockhopper Exploration and Israel’s Navitas Petroleum, with first production scheduled for 2028.
The two countries have designated different forums for maritime disputes, which under the convention sends the case to an arbitral panel that can take months to constitute. The Hamburg tribunal has no jurisdiction over sovereignty itself.
The same statement announced sanctions proceedings, criminal complaints and diplomatic steps against Thales UK Limited, which Buenos Aires said had flown a British-registered aircraft between the islands and Punta Arenas, southern Chile, without Argentine authorisation. The aircraft carried an islands delegation to a business forum in the Chilean city on September 28-29.
Argentina also rejected Britain’s response to Milei’s address to the UN General Assembly on September 23, arguing that the 2013 referendum and the status of British Overseas Territory did not extinguish the dispute. British defence secretary Wes Streeting has said that Argentina lacks the capability to seize the archipelago.
The escalation began on September 3, when Milei announced sanctions against companies drilling at Sea Lion, a naval base in Tierra del Fuego and a national security council, prompting Reform UK to promise military force in defence of the islands.
The European Union has been drawn in before. A July 2023 declaration agreed with Latin American and Caribbean states used the Argentine name for the archipelago, drawing protests from London before Brussels clarified its position.
Brussels also shapes the islands’ economy. Since Brexit the Falklands have lost tariff-free access to the single market, leaving squid subject to a 6 per cent duty and other fish up to 18 per cent, in a territory where fisheries account for between a third and a half of output.
