Argentina’s President Javier Milei has said his government will seek international arbitration against the UK over an oil project off the Falkland Islands.
Milei’s office said it had given the UK two weeks to halt work on the Sea Lion, an offshore oilfield being developed by Petroleum and Britain’s Rockhopper Exploration.
If this doesn’t happen, Argentina says it will ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a Hamburg-based maritime court, to order a temporary halt to the project.
“Argentina will not stand idly by,” the presidential statement said, accusing the UK of causing “irreversible and irreparable” harm.
The tribunal, an independent court established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, can issue legally binding emergency orders.
But even if it ordered the UK to halt the project, it has no means of forcing the government to comply.
The UK rejects Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, arguing the islanders have the right to determine their own future and develop their natural resources.
In a referendum in 2013, residents of the Falklands voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory, although Argentina claims the islands were populated illegally.
The dispute marks an escalating clash over resources that could transform the economy of the sparsely populated South Atlantic archipelago.
Argentinian Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno praised Milei’s move as “a historic and unprecedented step” in the country’s nearly two-century campaign to secure sovereignty over the archipelago.
“Whoever explores or exploits our natural resources in the Malvinas without Argentine authorisation must face the consequences,” he wrote on X, using Argentina’s name for the islands.
Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” initially drew scorn from his nationalist opponents for his conciliatory stance toward Britain and professed admiration for Margaret Thatcher, the wartime prime minister loathed in Argentina for ordering the islands’ recapture.
The brief but bloody war, which erupted when the Argentine military dictatorship invaded the archipelago in 1982, killed 649 Argentine troops, 255 British service members and three islanders.
But Milei has taken an increasingly confrontational stance as oil production near the islands approaches its anticipated start in 2028.
US President Donald Trump, a close ally of the Argentine leader, suggests he could reconsider Washington’s long-standing neutrality in the dispute.
Last week, Milei dedicated much of his UN General Assembly speech to Argentina’s sovereignty claim, accusing the international body of neglecting the Falklands dispute and denouncing the oil project as an illegal exploitation of Argentine resources.
His government has sent Congress a bill proposing prison terms of up to 20 years for extracting resources around the islands without Argentine authorisation and extending penalties to fishing, the bedrock of the islands’ economy.
Argentine authorities say they are investigating at least 60 companies and executives for possible violations. This month an Argentine judge also ordered a halt to work on Sea Lion pending an environmental review.
Critics accuse Milei of using the sovereignty claim – one of the few causes in Argentina that cuts across the country’s stark political lines – to bolster flagging public support ahead of next year’s presidential election as the economy falters.
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