The British Government has rejected this Tuesday the initiative from Buenos Aires before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, describing it as "attempts by Argentina to intimidate companies and individuals" in the Falkland Islands. The Argentine request calls for the adoption of "provisional measures" to stop the exploitation of resources by the United Kingdom, with a special focus on the oil project 'Sea Lion'.
"Argentina's attempts to intimidate companies and individuals carrying out legitimate commercial activities are unacceptable," stated the British Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, in a statement "on Argentina's actions regarding the Falkland Islands".
In the same document, the head of London's diplomacy defended that "companies must have the freedom to make lawful business decisions without being threatened by political coercion". Furthermore, in line with the position that the United Kingdom has maintained in the dispute with Argentina over the sovereignty of the archipelago, Miliband reiterated that the British Executive "will always" support "the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, their right to determine their own future and their right to seek legitimate economic development".
The response from the Foreign Office comes after the "request for provisional measures to prevent the exploitation of hydrocarbons by the United Kingdom in the continental shelf of the North Falkland Basin" presented by the Argentine Government before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a move that had been anticipated hours earlier by President Javier Milei in an official statement.
According to Milei, this step "seeks to preserve Argentina's sovereign rights over its continental shelf and prevent the activities unilaterally and illegally authorized by the United Kingdom from exacerbating the controversy recognized by the United Nations", emphasizing the "legitimate and imprescriptible sovereign rights" of the Argentine Republic "over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime spaces".
For his part, the Argentine Foreign Minister, Pablo Quirno, has highlighted that this "unprecedented" presentation requests the court that the United Kingdom "prevent the initiation or continuation of the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources in the continental shelf of the North Falkland Basin by the so-called 'Sea Lion' project," and that, furthermore, "it refrain from using the information obtained during the exploration of natural resources in the disputed maritime areas to the detriment of Argentina's rights."