Popular sovereignty  The people of the Falklands are an established community with a right to self-determination. They are not a transitory population – many of them can trace their origins in the Islands back to the early 19th Century. They are the only successful colonists of the Falklands.  The Argentinian claim of sovereignty through inheritance of the Spanish title (uti possedetis [1] ) is not accepted as a general article of international law, and even if it was it would have to be subordinate to the Islander’s right of self-determination.  It is absurd that Argentina claims that the Islanders do not have a right to self-determination because they replaced an indigenous Argentinian population 200 years ago when Argentina consists largely of Spanish colonists who replaced the indigenous Native American population in roughly the same time period.  [1] That newly independent nations inherit the claims of the old colonial states along the colonial boundaries. Dixon, Martin, Textbook on International Law, 6th ed., Oxford, 2007, p.163,