Britain should not be permitted to act as a ۱۷th-century colonial power treating the waters around the Falkland Islands as a Dominium maris Britannici, Argentina has told an international tribunal.
Marcelo Kohen, representing Argentina at a hearing in Hamburg, mocked Britain for apparently believing in the historic doctrine that the British crown has sovereignty over expansive parts of the oceans.
Argentina has applied to the international tribunal for the law of the sea (Itlos) for a ruling that would force Britain to suspend the drilling for oil in the North Basin of the Falkland Islands ahead of further arbitration.
The Sea Lion oilfield is about ۱۳۰ miles north of the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory over which Argentina has a longstanding sovereignty claim.
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, reportedly shared among his cabinet on Tuesday a photograph of the Argentinian legal team in Hamburg, describing it as “tremendous”, adding that “we are working on the Falklands issue like no one else in history”.
Addressing the tribunal on the second day of hearings, Kohen said that the dispute over the archipelago of ۷۰۰ islands in the south Atlantic – known in Argentina as the Malvinas – did not mean that the area was a “legal black hole” and that the UK could do as it wished with its natural resources.
“The fact that the parties dispute sovereignty does not turn the areas surrounding the Malvinas into some kind of Dominium maris Britannici,” he said. “We are not in the ۱۷th century … We are in an era where we should put an end to the last vestiges of colonialism.”
Ellie Reeves, the attorney general for England and Wales, told the tribunal’s panel of judges on Tuesday that Argentina was seeking to further its sovereignty ambitions by applying for suspension of the drilling.
She claimed that such a move would kill the Sea Lion project, with “disastrous consequences” for the Falkland Islanders and the companies involved. The UK claimed that the tribunal, which adjudicates over maritime matters, does not have jurisdiction to wade into matters of sovereignty.
Kohen, switching from French to English, said the UK had failed to mention in its submissions the “elephant in the room” or the “whale in the bathtub”. The UN regarded the Falkland Islands as a non-self-governing territory, he said, and had called in ۱۹۷۶ for both sides to refrain from taking decisions that would unilaterally change the situation before the sovereignty dispute was settled.
The exploitation of hydrocarbons would put the islands among the “highest ranks of wealth just below the principality of Monaco” while depriving Argentina of its rights to those resources, Kohen told the tribunal.
Argentina’s legal team claimed that suspension of the drilling, which is due to start in March next year and which could double the GDP of the islands, was urgent given the irreparable damage to Argentina’s rights.
In his closing remarks to the panel of ۲۲ judges, Mario Oyarzábal, a legal adviser to Argentina’s ministry of foreign affairs, said they rejected the UK’s attempt to characterise the proceedings as an attempt to litigate the sovereignty dispute.
He said: “The question before this tribunal is a much narrower one: whether, while the underlying dispute remains unresolved, the UK may unilaterally authorise or carry out new drilling for the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the disputed maritime area.”
Sam Wordsworth KC, responding for the UK, said there was nothing in the convention on the law of the seas, over which Itlos has jurisdiction, which obliged a state not to “aggravate” a sovereignty dispute and that the UN resolution cited by Kohen as the “elephant in the room” was not legally binding.
The UK further claims there is no need for urgent suspension of drilling as oil extraction would not take place until ۲۰۲۸, before which an arbitration panel would have come to a conclusion on Argentina’s wider claim that its rights have been breached.
During his recent speech at the UN general assembly, Milei described the reclaiming of the Falklands as a “national cause”. Argentina invaded the islands in ۱۹۸۲ on the orders of the dictator Gen Leopoldo Galtieri. The ۷۴-day conflict ended with the surrender of the Argentinian forces and cost the lives of ۶۴۹ of its military personnel, ۲۵۵ British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders.
Itlos is expected to make its ruling on Argentina’s case on ۲۸ November.
