A request for the prescription of provisional measures pending the constitution of an arbitral tribunal was submitted today to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a dispute with the Russian Federation. The dispute concerns the arrest and detention of the vessel Arctic Sunrise and its crew by authorities of the Russian Federation. The Arctic Sunrise, which flies the flag of the Netherlands, is an icebreaker operated by Greenpeace International. 

According to the Netherlands, the Arctic Sunrise was boarded by coastguard officials on 19 September 2013, brought to the port of Murmansk Oblast and detained. The Netherlands states that 30 members of crew, nationals of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the Russian Federation, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States, were arrested and detained in Murmansk Oblast and that judicial proceedings have been initiated against them. The Arctic Sunrise was being used by Greenpeace International to stage a protest directed against the offshore ice-resistant fixed platform ‘Prirazlomnaya’ in the Barents Sea.