Argentina asks Hamburg sea tribunal to halt UK oil drilling near Falklands

Argentina has asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to suspend British oil drilling north of the Falkland Islands, with work at the Sea Lion field, about 130 miles offshore, due to start in March. The case is being heard by a panel of 20 judges in Hamburg.

Marcelo Kohen, arguing for Argentina on the second day of hearings, told the tribunal the disputed waters were no "legal black hole" in which Britain could do as it wished with the natural resources, and no "Dominium maris Britannici" either. "We are not in the 17th century," he said. "We are in an era where we should put an end to the last vestiges of colonialism."

Britain is fighting on two fronts. It maintains the tribunal has no jurisdiction to rule on matters of sovereignty — and Ellie Reeves, the attorney general for England and Wales, told the judges that suspending the drilling would kill the Sea Lion project, with "disastrous consequences" for the islanders and the companies involved. Sam Wordsworth KC, for the UK, argued that nothing in the Law of the Sea convention obliges a state not to "aggravate" a sovereignty dispute.

Argentina insists its request is narrower than a sovereignty claim. Mario Oyarzábal, legal adviser to the foreign ministry, told the panel the question is whether Britain "may unilaterally authorise or carry out new drilling for the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the disputed maritime area" while the underlying dispute remains unresolved. Kohen noted that the UN lists the archipelago — 700 islands known in Argentina as the Malvinas — as a non-self-governing territory, and that in 1976 it called on both sides to refrain from decisions that would unilaterally change the situation.

Argentina's team told the tribunal the drilling could double the islands' GDP, and Kohen argued that hydrocarbon exploitation would place the Falklands "among the highest ranks of wealth just below the principality of Monaco".

President Javier Milei, who has cast himself as the West's closest ally in South America, shared a photograph of the legal team with his cabinet on Tuesday and pronounced their work "tremendous". "We are working on the Falklands issue," he said, "like no one else in history."