By Vicky Kapogianni Associate Professor of International and Environmental Law, University of Reading - Argentina is trying to stop a planned oil project near the Falkland Islands. On October 13, the government asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas (Itlos), a court in Hamburg that deals with disputes over the sea, to halt the project. Argentina says the UK approved the drilling without its agreement and in breach of Argentina’s rights to the seabed.
The project, called Sea Lion, is a joint venture between UK and Israeli companies, and has been licensed to produce oil by the Falkland Islands government. The Sea Lion field holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil, 500 million barrels of which is assessed as recoverable.
Argentina began arbitration proceedings against the UK on September 28 and gave London 14 days to stop the project. That deadline expired on October 12. The Argentine government has now called on Itlos to issue “provisional measures” – emergency orders to protect each side’s rights, or prevent serious harm to the marine environment.
The UK’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has rejected Argentina’s claims, insisting the UK will “vigorously” contest jurisdiction.
Itlos applies the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs the sea – not land. Yet rights at sea flow from owning the coast, which means that whoever holds the Falklands holds the seabed – and the oil – around the Islands. Tribunals under the convention have no power to decide who owns land, and can’t settle sovereignty disputes.
Because rights at sea flow from land, every question about the oil in the dispute between Argentina and the UK has been dragged back into a near two-century argument over who owns the Islands.
We proposed settling boundaries, resources and environmental protection on the basis of fairness, as Australia and Timor-Leste agreed in 2018 to share revenue from oil and gas in the Timor Sea.
What Argentina is asking
Argentina’s request asks Itlos to order the UK to prevent Sea Lion from starting production while the arbitration is under way. The Argentine government warns that commencing extraction would create an “irreversible fait accompli”.
To back its argument, Argentina is relying on a 2015 order in a sea-border dispute between Ghana and Ivory Coast. There, the tribunal allowed Ghana’s existing oil operations to continue but banned new drilling. So the question is whether – with Sea Lion’s development due to begin in early 2027 – the project could be halted in the same way.
The tribunal must also accept that the rights at stake are “plausible” – meaning there is a credible legal basis for them, even though the full case has yet to be heard. For Ivory Coast, this was simple. Nobody disputed that both countries had coastlines over which they had sovereignty. The only argument was over where the sea border between them should run.
For Argentina, it is an uphill battle. It insists it is not seeking a ruling on sovereignty, yet its request rests on “sovereign rights” over the continental shelf. It is hard to judge that this is a plausible claim without asking who owns the Islands.
A bridge from Crimea?
In April, a tribunal hearing a dispute between Ukraine and Russian over coastal rights in the Black Sea close to the occupied Ukrainian province of Crimea found that Russia had breached the convention over the Kerch Strait bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea along with associated power cables and gas pipelines. Ukraine had brought the case in 2016, two years after Russia annexed Crimea, accusing it of usurping Ukraine’s rights in the surrounding waters – from drilling rigs to shipping lanes – and seeking compensation.
The tribunal found that Russia’s environmental assessments were inadequate and unpublished, and that it failed to cooperate in protecting the marine environment.
How could the tribunal say all this without deciding who owns Crimea? Because duties such as assessing environmental impact apply to activities under a state’s “jurisdiction or control”. What mattered was that Russia controlled the bridge, cables and gas pipelines. Who owns Crimea could be left for another day.
Could the same reasoning apply to Sea Lion? The UK answers for the Islands internationally, and the convention requires states to ensure that activities under their jurisdiction or control do not cause pollution damage to other states. Argentina’s request cites a spill contingency plan by Premier Oil, Sea Lion’s former operator, which put the chance that oil from a blowout would cross into Argentine waters after 30 days at 30%. A tribunal could, without having to determine who owns the oil, consider whether the UK has assessed and shared such risks.
Should Argentina keep its hopes up?
The tribunal relating to Crimea held that the award was “appropriate declaratory relief”. This meant its formal, binding finding that Russia had broken the law was the sole remedy. Russia was not ordered to change its conduct or pay reparation for its environmental breaches.
So what are Argentina’s chances of success if it pursues an argument about the project’s environmental risk? Real, but the victory, if it comes, may not stop Sea Lion going ahead, and it won’t determine Argentina’s ownership of the Falkland Islands.
Even an interim order requiring the UK to assess and share the project’s environmental risks with Argentina would represent a win of sorts.
And with an election next year in which the incumbent president, Javier Milei, is struggling, and given how strongly most Argentines feel about the issued, even a modest win could help the president.
Any order for Argentina and the UK to cooperate would bring London and Buenos Aires back to the same table over Sea Lion. A conversation about shared risks could be the first step towards sharing the resources.