Nocturnal 
Argentina has told the UK it has just two weeks to halt an oil drilling project near the Falkland Islands, or face being taken to an international maritime court.
President Javier Milei posted on X that he had ordered his foreign ministry and legal teams to prepare international arbitration against Britain, accusing it of the “illegal plundering of our resources” through the Sea Lion oil project.
“If in two weeks the United Kingdom does not halt the illegitimate exploitation, we will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,” Milei wrote, adding: “THE MALVINAS ARE ARGENTINE, and they are defended with facts, not words.”
What is the Sea Lion project?
Sea Lion is an offshore oilfield around 130 miles from the Falklands, thought to hold roughly 1.7 billion barrels of oil. It’s being developed by British firm Rockhopper Exploration and Israeli company Navitas Petroleum, who reached a final investment decision earlier this year. First oil is pencilled in for March 2028, with production expected to run for more than 30 years, according to OilPrice.com.
Both companies insist they hold valid licences issued by the Falkland Islands government and have rejected Argentina’s claims that the work is unlawful.
Argentina’s presidential statement, reported by Morning Star, said Britain had caused “irreversible and irreparable” harm and that “Argentina will not stand idly by”. Foreign minister Pablo Quirno hailed the move as “a historic and unprecedented step” in the country’s long-running push for sovereignty over the islands.
The Falklands dispute, explained
Britain has controlled the Falklands since 1833, but Argentina has claimed the archipelago, which it calls Las Malvinas, for nearly two centuries. The two countries fought a 10-week war over the islands in 1982, which ended in Argentina’s surrender and is still marked by street murals for fallen soldiers in Buenos Aires, as noted by LBC.
In a 2013 referendum, Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory. The UK maintains that islanders have the right to determine their own future and to develop their own natural resources. Argentina disputes this, saying the islands were populated illegally.
Milei used a speech at the UN General Assembly to renew his sovereignty claim, branding the organisation “useless” for failing to help resolve the dispute and describing its officials as “arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats”, according to LBC.
What happens next
If the UK does not stand down within the two-week window, Argentina says it will ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an independent Hamburg-based court set up under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to issue an emergency order halting the project. The tribunal can issue legally binding orders, but as Morning Star and LBC both point out, it has no real means of forcing Britain to comply.
Meanwhile, according to The Telegraph, Rockhopper and Navitas have called on the government, including minister Ed Miliband, to back British firms amid what they describe as Argentina’s growing aggression over the Falklands.
For now, drilling plans remain unchanged. The UK government and the two companies behind Sea Lion have shown no sign of backing down, setting the stage for a fresh legal and diplomatic standoff over the South Atlantic territory in the weeks ahead.
