“I actually think Argentina has some reasonable claim to the islands but since the citizens living there want to remain British, that should be the deciding factor.”
Argentine has never had a lawful claim of possession on the Falkland Islands. Argentina’s pretended claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands are based upon false claims of succession from Spanish and French claims on the islands, which France and Spain abandoned and/or negotiated away in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
The Argentine claim of succession is based upon a false and fraudulent claim that an Argentine government succeeded in the possession of the Falkland islands through the Spanish Viceroyalty. In historical fact however, the Spanish territorial claim on the Falkland Islands had already been transferred away from the viceroyalty in South America directly to the Royal Government and the department for the Spanish Navy in Madrid. This was years before the revolution in the future Argentine occurred.
Furthermore, Argentina formally relinquished any and all of its pretended claims of sovereignty over the Falklands Islands in two separate treaties between Argentina and Great Britain in the 19th Century.
The French claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands was based solely upon a claim of prior occupancy. The French claim was defective in at least two respects. The British had a public and well known prior claim of sovereignty on the Falkland Islands by right of discovery. The French claim was based on the principal that actual occupancy superseded Britain’s right of discovery. Unfortunately, the French claim failed in part by occupying only the East Falklands while the British only very shortly afterwards also occupied the Western Falklands while each remained ignorant of the presence of the other in the Falklands for a significant period of time.
While the French and the British were trying to determine which of the British claim by right of discovery, the French claim by right of occupancy of the East Falklands, and the British occupation of the West Falklands would prevail in determining sovereignty of part or all of the Falklands, the Spanish stepped into the controversy with its claim by right of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Although the French did not recognize the treaty to have any authority except between Spain and Portugal, France decided it would nevertheless relinquish the French colony in the Falkland Islands to Spain by purchase. The Treaty of Tordesillas was not binding upon Britain either, so the Franco-Spanish transfer of claims had no effect upon the British claim of sovereignty.
This disputed French claim of sovereignty by right of occupancy was then assumed by Spain and transferred from the viceroyalty responsible for much of South America to the Royal department responsible for the Spanish Navy. It was then up to the British and Spanish governments to settle the disputed claims of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands between themselves. Spain later abandoned its colony and settled disputed claims of sovereignty by treaty, leaving Britain as the sole remaining claimant by right of discovery and by right of occupancy.
When these events were taking place and establishing Britain as the sole remaining claimant of sovereignty over all of the Falkland Islands remaining, Argentina did not exist as a sovereign nation recognized by international law. So, Britain re-occupied the Falkland islands before a sovereign government of Argentina ever came into existence to make a pretended claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
Finally, Argentina is also claiming sovereignty over Britain’s South Georgia Islands, and there is no lawful basis for such a claim by Argentina under any pretended theory whatsoever; certainly not by right of discovery or right of occupation.
Argentina’s obligations under prior treaties with Britain, the Kellogg-Briand Treaty of 1928, and the Charter of the United Nations forbid Argentina’s hostile claims of sovereignty over the British territories, their invasion, or their occupation by Argentina. In short, Argentina’s criminally fraudulent claims of sovereignty are totally without substance and totally contrary to the evidence and reason.
Thanks for that info. It sounds like Argentina has no claim at all.