MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

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  Steve Potts

  Difficult to see how Narnia is going to make progress with this:
  
  Jurisdiction under UNCLOS
  The compulsory dispute settlement system of UNCLOS may only be invoked with respect to disputes “concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention” as per Article 288(1). Issues of territorial sovereignty, however, are not regulated by UNCLOS.
  
  In the 320 articles and nine annexes of UNCLOS, not a single provision addresses the question of which State may hold sovereign title over a given land territory. The only explicit reference to such disputes is in Article 298(1)(a)(i), which simply allows States to exclude from compulsory conciliation those disputes that necessarily involve the concurrent consideration of sovereignty disputes. Indeed, many UNCLOS provisions proceed on the assumption that sovereignty issues have already been resolved. UNCLOS repeatedly refers to the “coastal State” as the entity from which maritime jurisdiction flows, without defining what constitutes a coastal State. As Beckman notes, “territorial sovereignty disputes are governed by rules of customary international law on the acquisition and loss of territory, not by UNCLOS...UNCLOS was never intended to resolve issues of sovereignty”.
  
  Thus, UNCLOS does not, and cannot, determine whether Argentina or the UK is the “coastal State” in respect of the Islands. In the event Argentina claimed sovereignty over the Islands before the Annex VII tribunal, directly or indirectly (e.g., by asserting sovereign rights over the adjacent continental shelf), the claim would not concern the interpretation or application of UNCLOS and would fall outside the tribunal's subject-matter jurisdiction. Indeed, in every instance where a claim brought before Annex VII UNCLOS tribunals required them to decide a question of unresolved sovereignty over land territory, UNCLOS tribunals have declined to do so (see BIICL, Mixed Disputes). Abhijeet Shrivastava & Dr Constantinos Yiallourides, Brit Institute of Int law.

  Oct 14th, 2026 - 08:03 am - Link - Report abuse +1
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  Pugol-H

  But it looks good to the Argentinian masses, as if something is actually happening to advance the cause, doesn’t really matter it was always going nowhere, for all the reasons you point out.
  
  The Argy Gov must know that as well.
  
  This is all just for show.

  Oct 14th, 2026 - 02:01 pm - Link - Report abuse +1
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  Jack Jones

  They even wanted Interpol to arrest anyone involved with the Falklands oil development, it was quite rightly rejected, what a bizarre Argentine government,

  Oct 14th, 2026 - 03:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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