On 13 October 2026 Argentina submitted a request for provisional measures against the United Kingdom to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Case No. 37, ITLOS press release 401); BBC News confirms the filing.
History. 1 of 4 cases took the named step within 33 days of the threat. Malaysia, the only one to use this tribunal, filed on day 63.
Hunch. Under the convention Argentina must start arbitration and then wait two weeks before it can file, and Milei said arbitration would start only after his deadline of about 12 October (BBC News, 29 Sep 2026).
Resolves on the list of cases and press releases of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, checked on 1 November 2026: YES if Argentina has filed a request for provisional measures against the United Kingdom on or before 31 October 2026. A statement that Argentina will file, or the start of arbitration without a request to the tribunal, resolves NO. BBC News and Al Jazeera are the backup.
We looked for cases where a country claimed land or sea that another country controls, that country allowed business there, and the claimant publicly threatened a named step to stop it, a step with no power to force the other side. Steps backed by force were left out. We found four, from 2003 to 2024. The work did not stop because of the threat in any of them. Three of the four claimants did take the step they named, but only one did it within a month.