A two-week ultimatum over Sea Lion
Argentina's executive branch formally notified the United Kingdom on Monday that it has two weeks to adopt the measures needed to prevent the start or continuation of hydrocarbon extraction tied to the Sea Lion project in the Falkland Islands. According to the official statement, President Javier Milei also directed the foreign ministry and state legal teams to activate the arbitration mechanism set out in Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The stated aims are twofold: to stop extraction in the North Falkland Basin and to block any new authorizations covering resources of the Argentine Continental Shelf.[S1][S2][S3]
The government warned that if the deadline passes without a British response, Argentina will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to request provisional measures protecting its sovereign rights over the continental shelf while the case proceeds. Buenos Aires argues that unilateral exploitation of those resources violates international law and causes irreversible and irreparable harm to Argentine rights. Milei shared the statement on social media and added that the islands are Argentine and are defended with deeds, not words.[S1][S2][S3]
Rejection of London's arguments
Part of the statement answers London's reaction to the president's address before the UN General Assembly. The government expressed categorical rejection of the British position and challenged two arguments it says the United Kingdom keeps making. Neither the designation of the islands as a British Overseas Territory nor the unilateral 2013 referendum, which lacks international recognition, changes the existence or the subject of the sovereignty dispute recognized by the United Nations, the text says.[S1][S2]
To support its case, the executive cited UN General Assembly Resolution 2065 (XX), which recognized the dispute between the two countries and urged both governments to find a peaceful solution through negotiations. It also invoked Resolution 31/49, which called on both parties to refrain from decisions implying unilateral modifications of the situation while the recommended process continues, a norm the government says the Sea Lion project affects. The statement stressed that unilateral exploitation of natural resources of the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and surrounding maritime spaces is contrary to international law and produces irreversible and irreparable harm to Argentine sovereignty rights.[S2][S3]
Sanctions over flights to Punta Arenas
The statement added a separate front. Argentina said it detected operations by Thales UK Limited on the air route linking the Falkland Islands with Punta Arenas, Chile, carried out with an aircraft registered in the United Kingdom and without authorization from Argentine authorities. The president ordered his teams to urgently begin sanction procedures and file the corresponding criminal complaints, alongside the relevant diplomatic steps.[S1][S2][S3]
The document closed with a declaration of intent, stating that Argentina will not stand idle and will keep defending its sovereign rights firmly, using every diplomatic, administrative and legal tool available under national and international law. In a post on X, Milei said he had instructed the foreign ministry and legal teams to start international arbitration against the United Kingdom over what he called the illegal plundering of resources through the Sea Lion project in the North Falkland Basin, and warned that if London does not stop the exploitation within two weeks, Argentina will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.[S1][S2][S3]
