POSITION CASE

On August 23, Greenpeace ignored a Russian ban on protesting state oil company Rosneft's
operations in the Arctic and entered international waters in the Kara Sea. On August 26,
Arctic Sunrise left the Northern Sea Route, after the Russian coast guard boarded the ship and
threatened to use military force if they did not leave the international waters of the Kara Sea.
On September 18, 2013, four RHIB inflatable aircraft were launched from the Arctic Sunrise
from its position in the Pechora Sea. The RHIBs took Greenpeace activists and crew
members to Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya drilling platform. At the time of the action,
Greenpeace stated that their goal was to place a banner on the oil platform calling for a halt to
oil drilling.
Two activists named Mr. Weber and Mrs. Sini Annukka Sareela managed to stay on the
platform and tried to climb up, despite being sprayed with water. The Russian Coast Guard
fired warning shots from rifles and four warning shots from cannons at the Ladoga coastal
patrol boat. The two activists were eventually forced to disembark, removed from the
platform, and detained on the Coast Guard vessel. On September 19, 2013, the day after the
Prirazlomnaya protest, Russian authorities forcibly took over the Arctic Sunrise, which was
boarded from a helicopter by fifteen Russian Federal Security Service officers wearing
balaclavas armed with guns. When boarding, the Arctic Sunrise was in Russia's Exclusive
Economic Zone and didn’t have an unsolicited boarding permit from the Arctic Sunrise's
home country of the Netherlands.
After taking control of the Arctic Sunrise, Russian authorities detained the Greenpeace
activists aboard the Arctic Sunrise. During the detention process, a dispute broke out between
the Russian authorities and the Greenpeace activists on board the Arctic Sunrise. The captain
was separated from the crew, while the crew and other activists were detained in the dining
room. There are allegations that the detained crew members and activists received treatment
that violated human rights when they were forced to board the ship. They were investigated
on charges of piracy, which in Russia carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. On
October 23, the piracy charge was dropped and replaced with an aggravated charge of
hooliganism carrying a maximum sentence of seven years. Because the Arctic Sunrise flies
the Dutch flag, the Netherlands filed the case with the International Tribunal for the Law of
the Sea.