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Russia ignores Dutch international lawsuit over Greenpeace ship

23 October 2013 02:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russia did not accept the provisional measures envisaged by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea covered the detention of a Greenpeace ship, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The Arctic Sunrise, a vessel hired by the environmental group and sailed under the Dutch flag, was arrested by Russian border guards on Sept. 24 after several of its crew tried to board a Russian oil platform in the northern Pechora Sea.

The Netherlands filed a request to the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on Oct. 21, asking it to order the release of the ship's crew and oblige Moscow to stop all actions against them.

"Greenpeace activists' actions on the Prirazlomnaya oil rig on Sept. 18 have violated Russian legislation on its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Criminal investigation of the incident is currently underway," the ministry said in an online comment.

Moscow had informed the Netherlands and International Tribunal that Russia did not accept the arbitration procedure over the Arctic Sunrise and was not going to participate in the hearings, the ministry said, adding Russia remained open to settling the matter.

A Russian court has ordered all 30 of the ship's crew members detained until Nov. 24 pending proceedings.

The developments around the Arctic Sunrise crew could not be explained only by their actions at Prirazlomnaya, said Igor Chestin, Director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Russian bureau.

"(Owner of the oil rig, Russian gas giant) Gazprom made a fuss about nothing and led the situation to the international court. Gazprom spent lots of money to create the company's positive image but the current developments completely destroyed the work done," Chestin told Xinhua during the First International Arctic Media Forum this week.

Chestin said Greenpeace and the WWF submitted a thorough report to Gazpromneft (Gazprom's 100-percent subsidiary) in 2012 about the hazards of oil extraction on the high seas. But in spring 2013 Gazprom withdrew from the dialogue, he said.

The Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in December 1982 and ratified by Moscow in 1997 with a proviso that it refused to accept the convention's Article 290 in relation to Russia's sovereign jurisdiction and rights.

Article 290 states that the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea may prescribe provisional measures pending the constitution of an arbitral tribunal to which a dispute is being submitted.