Setting a two-week deadline on Monday, Milei said if the Sea Lion offshore oil project—a venture between British and Israeli companies—has not been stopped, then he will take the matter to the “International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,” an independent judicial body responsible for the application of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of the Sea. Milei said Argentina’s Foreign Ministry and legal teams have been prepped to “initiate international arbitration” against the U.K. The oil companies—Britain's Rockhopper Exploration and Israel's Navitas Petroleum—have said they have valid licenses for the planned extractions. TIME has reached out to the companies for further comment.
In response to Milei’s deadline, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Foreign Office told TIME: "These latest threats are another attempt to deny the Falkland Islanders the right to pursue their own economic development and decide their own future. As the Prime Minister [Andy Burnham] has made clear, our support for the Falkland Islanders' right of self-determination is unwavering, and we will always defend it.”
There are vast energy reserves in the Sea Lion oilfield, with the basin estimated to contain 1.7 billion barrels of oil.
Marcelo Kohen, a professor emeritus of international law at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, says the two-week ultimatum is tied to a procedure Argentina has to follow before seeking provisional measures from the tribunal.
This isn’t the first time Argentina has turned to international legal mechanisms to resolve maritime disputes. In October 2012, Argentina initiated arbitration after Ghana detained an Argentine naval training ship. The tribunal unanimously ordered Ghana to release the vessel.
Milei’s turn to international law comes amid his fierce criticism of the United Nations, which he has accused of looking "the other way" amid escalating tensions with Britain.
“The Sea Lion project is moving towards oil extraction on the Argentine continental shelf in the North Malvinas basin under British licenses that Argentina rejects as illegal and illegitimate,” he told delegates.
Following through on that threat, Argentina's Foreign Ministry on Sept. 15 said it had sent approximately 180 warning and risk assessment notes to individuals and legal entities located in 30 countries and filed three criminal complaints involving 10 companies and their directors.
The Falklands have been administered by Britain since 1833 and remain a British overseas territory, but Argentina continues to claim them. The Falkland Islands have been on the U.N.’s list of non-self-governing territories since 1946.
Matthew Benwell, a reader in human geography at Newcastle University, tells TIME that the Falklands remain a “largely self-governing British overseas territory.”
But Argentina approaches the sovereignty question through a different legal framework.
Argentina points to a 1965 U.N. Resolution, which calls for bilateral sovereignty negotiations and consideration of the islanders’ “interests,” but does not expressly apply the principle of self-determination to them.
Benwell, however, describes the sovereignty argument as a “persistent one-way debate between the U.K. and Argentina, that predominantly comes from Argentina.”
How Trump stoked Falklands tensions
Milei appeared to seize on Trump's comments during a national address on Sept. 3, insisting that the “winds of change blowing around the world” are favorable to Argentina’s long-standing sovereignty claim over the South Atlantic archipelago.
On Sept. 12, Trump, during a sit-down with Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin, called the mounting tensions over the Falklands a “potential disaster” and said he would “probably be able to settle it out,” without providing details of what that would entail.
TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.
“These are just statements so far, and there's been no substantive changes to U.S. foreign policy,” he emphasizes.
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