Sea Shepherd
E2. Naval, defence and maritime law enforcementDefinition
NGO whose activities raise enforcement-jurisdiction questions.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a marine-conservation NGO founded by Paul Watson in 1977, known for direct-action campaigns against whaling, illegal fishing, and poaching. Its interventions, such as harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, raised disputed questions of enforcement jurisdiction, flag-state authority, and whether some tactics amount to acts against ships. A US Ninth Circuit ruling in 2013 (Institute of Cetacean Research v. Sea Shepherd) characterized certain of its actions as piracy under the legal definition. Sea Shepherd is a private body, not a state enforcement agency.
Source: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (founded 1977); Institute of Cetacean Research v. Sea Shepherd, 725 F.3d 940 (9th Cir. 2013).