Milei gives UK two weeks to halt Falklands oil project, threatens legal action
Argentine President Javier Milei said Monday that his government would seek international arbitration against the UK over an oil project off the disputed, UK-controlled Falkland Islands, escalating a clash over resources that could transform the economy of the sparsely populated South Atlantic archipelago.
Milei's office said it had given the UK two weeks to halt work on Sea Lion, an offshore oilfield being developed by Israel's Navitas Petroleum and the UK's Rockhopper Exploration. Otherwise, Argentina would 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 to Argentina's sovereign rights.
The tribunal, an independent maritime court in Hamburg, Germany, 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 sovereignty claim, arguing that 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. Argentina contends the islands were populated illegally.
Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno hailed Milei's move as “a historic and unprecedented step” in Argentina's nearly two-century campaign to secure sovereignty over the archipelago.
“Whoever explores or exploits our natural resources in the Malvinas without Argentine authorization must face the consequences,” he wrote on X, using Argentina's name for the islands.
Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” initially sought warmer ties with Britain, drawing scorn from nationalist opponents for his conciliatory stance and professed admiration for Margaret Thatcher, the wartime British 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. U.S. President Donald Trump, a close ally of the Argentine leader, has also suggested he could reconsider Washington's longstanding neutrality in the dispute.
Last week, Milei dedicated a substantial portion of his UN General Assembly speech to Argentina's sovereignty claim, accusing the international body of neglecting the conflict and denouncing the oil project as an illegal exploitation of Argentine resources.
He has threatened sanctions against companies involved and sent Congress legislation proposing prison terms of up to 20 years for extracting resources around the islands without Argentine authorisation. The bill would also extend penalties to fishing, the bedrock of the islands' economy. An Argentine judge this month also ordered a halt to work on Sea Lion pending an environmental review, although enforcement remains unlikely.
Critics accuse Milei of using the sovereignty claim — one of the few causes that cuts across the country's stark political divisions — to shore up public support ahead of next year's presidential election as his approval ratings slide and the economy falters.
