Greenpeace protest skipper Elvis Teddy has been ordered back to court after the High Court overturned an earlier decision to dismiss the charges arising from a marine protest off the East Cape.

The skipper of the San Pietro had charges of breaching maritime safety regulations and resisting arrest dismissed following a defended hearing at Tauranga in July last year.

Elvis Teddy is headed back to court after a High Court overturned his earlier dismissal.

The earlier dismissal was overturned in a High Court ruling that rules police had the right to arrest him outside New Zealand's territorial sea zone.

Elvis was skipper of the fishing boat San Pietro when it was boarded off East Cape by armed police in April 2011.

He was protesting Brazilian company Petrobras' seismic survey of the Raukumara basin along with a flotilla of other protest boats.

Police say he steered San Pietro within 20 metres of the survey ship and refused to heed police orders to back down.

The charges were thrown out at his defended hearing on the grounds of territoriality.

It was found the San Pietro was outside New Zealand's 12 mile territorial limit and Judge Patrick Treston upheld the defence argument that the New Zealand laws under which Elvis was arrested did not apply outside New Zealand.

Police appealed the decision, and Justice Mark Woolford quashed it in the High Court in a judgement released on Thursday, ordering the case back to the District Court for a further defended hearing.

Justice Woolford ruled that while the Maritime Transport Act and the Crimes Act do not explicitly say New Zealand law applies to ships outside the territorial zone, international maritime law requires it.

'It is troubling that there is no express provision in the Maritime Transport Act stating that the Act as a whole applies beyond the territorial sea,” states the judgement.

'It is also necessary to bear in mind the presumption against reading criminal statutes widely which may caution against identifying extraterritorial application from the statutory context.

'I am, however, also of the view that the Maritime Transport Act applies by necessary implication. It must be read to have extraterritorial effect in accordance with New Zealand's international law obligations. The Maritime Transport Act must be read consistently with international law.

'New Zealand Courts have for over a century made it plain that legislation regulating maritime matters should be read in the context of the international law of the sea and, if possible, consistently with that law.”

The Maritime Transport Act should be read consistently with New Zealand's international obligations regarding the law of the sea, says Justice Woolford.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, New Zealand has an obligation to exercise exclusive penal jurisdiction in collisions and navigational accidents.

Each state has a responsibility to ensure its ships (and those using them) are acting responsibly on the high seas.

New Zealand would be in breach of its international obligations if the Maritime Transport Act did not confer jurisdiction to arrest seafarers who are breaching New Zealand's navigational laws.

The Convention specifically requires New Zealand to exercise jurisdiction over navigational matters. No other state has the ability to exercise jurisdiction over New Zealand flag state ships on the high seas.

Accordingly, in order for New Zealand to meet its international obligations, The Maritime Transport Act must apply to all New Zealand ships whether within or beyond New Zealand's territorial sea, says the judgement.