Russia has failed to appear at an international court that is hearing a Dutch bid to force the release of the Greenpeace protest ship Arctic Sunrise and the activists who were on board her.
Moscow announced last month that it does not accept the arbitration procedure before the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
Dutch representative Liesbeth Lijnzaad told the hearing Russia had ‘violated the human rights’ of the activists that tried to board the country’s first Arctic offshore oil platform two months ago.
Netherlands authorities claim that because the arrest of the Greenpeace ship was illegal, the subsequent detention of the crew was also illegal as economic zones did not give the country power to board vessels.
The 28 Greenpeace activists, a Russian photographer and a British videographer have been held since the Arctic Sunrise was seized by the Russian coastguard after a protest near a Gazprom-owned oil rig on September 18.
The tribunal handles disputes related to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Tribunal president Shunji Yanai has set a date of November 22 for a provisional decision.
“The Netherlands is taking a strong stance in support of the rule of law and the right to peacefully protest,” said Greenpeace’s general counsel Jasper Teulings after the hearing.
“Greenpeace International applauds the Dutch decision as flag state of the Arctic Sunrise in taking the necessary legal steps to gain the release of the ship and the Arctic 30. [We’re] confident that the tribunal will take appropriate account of the fundamental rights of the Arctic 30, and the impact of their detention on those rights, in reaching its eventual decision.”
