page_title: Paul Watson
section_title: Charges and prosecutions
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Watson / Controversy / Charges and prosecutions
caption_attribution_description: English: Paul Watson at anti-whaling rally in Port Angeles, 1999. The occasion was to protest the Makah whaling. (Note: This image is a crop of the larger image. If another editor feels another crop ratio is preferable, one may be made.)
context_page_description: Paul Franklin Watson is a Canadian-American marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation and marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
  The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace, crewed and skippered for it and a founding board member in 1972. He has been credited by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications with being a founder of Greenpeace. The documentary How to Change the World shows that Watson was indeed one of the original founding members of Greenpeace. Because Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, he was ousted from the board in 1977 and subsequently left the organization. That same year, he formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
context_section_description: Watson was sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $8,000 for his actions during a Canadian seal hunt protest in 1980. He was convicted of assaulting a fisheries officer. He was also found guilty under the Seal Protection Act for painting harp seal pups with red dye to devalue their pelts. Watson was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland. In 1997, Watson was convicted in absentia and sentenced to serve 120 days in jail by a court in Lofoten, Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing and whaling vessel Nybrænna on December 26, 1992. Dutch authorities refused to hand him over to Norwegian authorities although he did spend 80 days in detention in the Netherlands pending a ruling on extradition before being released.
  
  There have not been any successful attempts at prosecuting Watson for his activities with Sea Shepherd since the trial in Newfoundland. Watson defends his actions as falling within international law, in particular Sea Shepherd's right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers. 
  Sea Shepherd activists Rod Coronado and David Howitt went to Iceland in 1986 and scuttled two whaling ships in port at Reykjavík and also damaged a whale meat processing factory. Watson took responsibility for the operation, abiding by published Sea Shepherd principles. He went to Iceland saying, "I am responsible for all activities undertaken in the name of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. I give the orders." He was deported without being charged and is considered a persona non grata by Iceland
  In April 2010 the Japanese Coast Guard obtained an arrest warrant for Watson "...on suspicion of ordering sabotage activities against Japan's whaling fleet", and Interpol has listed him as wanted at the request of Japan. The red notice has the charges issued by Japan as, "Breaking into the Vessel, Damage to Property, Forcible Obstruction of Business, Injury". In March 2012 Interpol issued a "written statement to all 190 member countries making it clear that it would not publish a Red Notice" for the detention of Watson, but reversed that position in September 2012. In both statements Interpol stated that a "Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant" that it is "a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition in accordance with the country's national laws".
  In May 2012 Watson was detained by German authorities at the Frankfurt Airport because of a request from the government of Costa Rica. The charge stemmed from an altercation at sea in 2002 in which Sea Shepherd said that the other vessel was illegally shark finning in Guatemalan waters. Crew members of the other ship accused Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them. Watson was charged with violating navigational regulations with the Interpol alert stating the charge as, "peligro de naufragio" (danger of shipwreck). The conflict took place during filming for the documentary Sharkwater and the charges were dropped by prosecutors after video of the incident made by the documentary film makers was shown. On May 21, Watson was released on bail of €250,000 but required to report to police in Frankfurt on a daily basis. In June, Costa Rica formally requested Watson's extradition from Germany. On July 19, 2012, Japan applied for an extradition order and Watson left Germany, resulting in a German court ordering his immediate re-arrest. It is understood the statute of limitations on his Costa Rican charges was set to expire in June 2013.
  On August 7, 2012 Interpol renewed the Red Notice for Watson on the charges of "causing a danger of drowning or of an air disaster" laid by Costa Rica. It was reported that Watson would come out of hiding to join Sea Shepherd in the 2012–13 campaign against Japanese whaling. Watson rejoined the crew of the Steve Irwin in the South Pacific in late November 2012. In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson and has removed the Interpol
caption: Paul Watson leads protest against Makah whaling, Port Angeles, Washington, 1998.
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