ABSTRACT
On Sunday 30 April, the press newswires crackled with the story that a number of environmental activists from Britain, Germany and Holland had, using just wires and ropes, scaled and occupied an offshore oil platform 118 miles northeast of Lerwick, off the British Shetland Isles. The details were sketchy but it became clear that the activists were from the pressure group Greenpeace International and, it was reported, they had taken over the installation in an effort to prevent it being dumped in the ocean by its owners Shell Expro. By 6 p.m. that evening, both television and radio news programmes were covering the dramatic scenes of the ‘North Sea platform siege’.
