Argentina's government on Friday, September 18, 2026, promulgated a new law allowing immediate asset freezes and exclusion from state contracts for citizens merely suspected of terrorism, without requiring a conviction. This measure, Decree 1032 of 2026, writes an existing public register of persons and entities linked to terrorism and its financing directly into national law, granting the regime unprecedented power over its own people.
The same day, Argentina enacted Law 27,824, an extradition treaty with Chile. This agreement, signed in Santiago in December 2023, replaces an older, less efficient framework. It formalizes a bilateral process for transferring individuals, driven by Chile’s sharpened security debate over cross-border organized crime since 2023 and Rosario’s drug violence in Argentina, effectively ceding national judicial autonomy.
Simultaneously, Argentina also promulgated Law 27,825, adopting the Ibero-American convention on the electronic transmission of international judicial cooperation requests. This multilateral convention, signed in Medellín in July 2019, establishes the Iber@ platform. It allows courts to send requests electronically, bypassing traditional diplomatic channels and reducing processing times from months to mere days, further integrating Argentina into a supranational judicial network and diminishing national control over legal processes.
Elite Power Grab
Separately, a bill titled the National Sovereignty Defence Law was sent to the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, September 17. This proposed legislation replaces a 2011 law and seeks to extend sanctions for unauthorized resource exploration to any natural resource on the Argentine continental shelf. Its geographic scope includes the Malvinas, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and surrounding maritime areas, all claimed by Argentina but administered by Britain.
The bill proposes severe penalties, including fines ranging from 4,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent, prison sentences of up to twenty years, and disqualification from five to twenty years. It would bar offenders from operating anywhere in Argentina, not just in the disputed zones, and mandates the creation of a public register of offenders. State bodies and private parties would be prohibited from contracting with any listed entity, creating a powerful mechanism for economic exclusion.
Crucially, this bill also establishes a National Security Council, chaired by the president. This council would wield significant powers over currency restrictions, asset freezes, and the suspension of authorizations, centralizing control over the nation's economic and security apparatus under the executive branch. The inclusion on the terrorism register, requiring only “reasonable grounds for suspicion” rather than judicial conviction, grants this council immense, unchecked power over citizens and businesses.
The Cost to Nationals
An Argentine court issued an injunction against the Sea Lion project the same day these laws were promulgated, naming Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum as the companies behind it. Despite these new legislative actions, Britain's position on the disputed territories hasn't changed, nor does the stance of the islanders, who assert Argentine law holds no force there. This highlights the regime's focus on internal control and the dispossession of its own people, even as its external claims remain unheeded by those it purports to challenge.