Arbitral Tribunal Orders Russia to Pay Compensation for Seizure of Greenpeace Ship (August 14, 2015) [1]
On August 14, 2015, a tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [3] (the Convention) rendered [4] its award on the merits in Arctic Sunrise Arbitration (Netherlands v. Russia), ordering Russia to pay compensation for seizing and arresting the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise and its thirty crewmembers during a protest against offshore drilling in Arctic waters in 2013. The Court decided that “by boarding, investigating, inspecting, arresting, detaining, and seizing the Arctic Sunrise without the prior consent of the Netherlands, and by arresting, detaining, and initiating judicial proceedings against the Arctic 30, the Russian Federation breached obligations owed by it to the Netherlands as the flag State under Articles 56(2), 58(1), 58(2), 87(1)(a), and 92(1) of the Convention.” The Court further found that by failing to comply with the provisional measures [5] ordered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in 2013 “the Russian Federation breached its obligations to the Netherlands under Articles 290(6) and 296(1) of the Convention.” According to the press release [6], the “Tribunal found that the Netherlands is entitled to compensation (with interest) for material damage to the Arctic Sunrise, for material and non-material damage to the Arctic 30, and for the costs incurred by the Netherlands in connection with the issuance of a bank guarantee pursuant to the ITLOS Order.”