Argentine President Javier Milei has threatened the British government with legal action unless it halts oil exploration off the disputed Falkland Islands, escalating a long-running sovereignty dispute between the two countries.
In a social media post on Monday, Milei set a two-week deadline for all work on the Sea Lion oilfield project to cease. He said he had "instructed the Foreign Ministry and legal teams to initiate international arbitration" against the UK over what he called "the illegal plundering of our resources through the Sea Lion Project."
If the deadline is not met, Milei warned, Argentina will bring the matter before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an independent court based in Hamburg, Germany, established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The tribunal can issue legally binding emergency orders, though it has no means of forcing a government to comply.
Milei declared that "Argentina will not stand idly by" as the UK causes what he described as "irreversible and irreparable" damage, and called the ongoing operations "illegitimate exploitation" of the region.
The Sea Lion project is a joint venture between Israeli company Navitas and British company Rockhopper. Both firms have dismissed Argentina's threats, insisting they hold valid exploration licences issued by the UK.
The British government has said it stands behind the businesses operating near the Falklands. The UK rejects Argentina's sovereignty claim, arguing that the islanders have the right to determine their own future and to develop their natural resources. In a 2013 referendum, residents of the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory. Argentina contests this, arguing the islands were populated illegally.
Milei's administration has already taken prior legal action against the project, arguing it violates a United Nations resolution calling on both sides to refrain from unilateral actions in the territory until their dispute is resolved.
The latest ultimatum comes shortly after Milei criticised the UN at its General Assembly, calling it "a useless organisation" that only serves "arrogant parasites dressed up as well-intentioned bureaucrats," and accusing it of failing to act on the Falklands sovereignty question.
UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting subsequently said that Argentina "lacks the ability" to seize the Falklands by force.
Buenos Aires has intensified its push over the islands since US President Donald Trump indicated Washington was open to reviewing its historically neutral stance on the territory.
The Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, were the subject of a war in 1982 after Argentina invaded the archipelago. The conflict killed 649 Argentine soldiers, 255 British soldiers, and three islanders before a British military task force ejected Argentine forces and restored British administration.
