9th Circuit Court upholds Greenpeace injunction

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has upheld an injunction issued by the federal District Court in Alaska in May 2012, banning environmental activist organization Greenpeace from interfering with Shell’s offshore Alaska drilling operations. Greenpeace had appealed the District Court decision to the 9th Circuit.

“We conclude that, in light of the serious risk to human life and property posed by the conduct that the preliminary injunction enjoins, and given the narrow tailoring of the order, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the scales of equity tip in Shell’s favor,” the 9th Circuit court said in a majority opinion of a panel of three judges.

One judge in the panel presented a dissenting opinion, arguing that the reasoning behind the injunction was based in large part on the actions of people from outside the U.S., who the U.S. Greenpeace organization had no control over.

—Alan Bailey