Argentine lawyer mocks UK’s sovereignty claim in Falklands oil case

Lawyer says Britain wrong to believe in historic doctrine that crown has sovereignty over parts of oceans

Britain should not be permitted to act as a 17th-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.