RECALLING Article 15(j) of the Convention on the International
Maritime Organization concerning the functions of the Assembly in
relation to regulations and guidelines concerning maritime safety
and the prevention and control of marine pollution from ships,
RECALLING ALSO resolution A.680(17), by which it invited
Member Governments to encourage those responsible for the management
and operation of ships to take appropriate steps to develop, implement
and assess safety and pollution-prevention management in accordance
with the IMO Guidelines on Management for the Safe Operation of Ships
and for Pollution Prevention,
RECALLING ALSO resolution A.596(15), by which it requested
the Maritime Safety Committee to develop, as a matter of urgency,
guidelines, wherever relevant, concerning shipboard and shore-based
management, and its decision to include in the work programme of the
Maritime Safety Committee and the Marine Environment Protection Committee
an item on shipboard and shore-based management for the safe operation
of ships and for the prevention of marine pollution, respectively,
RECALLING FURTHER resolution A.441(XI), by which it invited
every State to take the necessary steps to ensure that the owner of
a ship which flies the flag of that State provides such State with
the current information necessary to enable it to identify and contact
the person contracted or otherwise entrusted by the owner to discharge
his responsibilities for that ship in regard to matters relating to
maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment,
RECALLING FURTHER resolution A.443(XI), by which it invited
Governments to take the necessary steps to safeguard the shipmaster
in the proper discharge of his responsibilities in regard to maritime
safety and the protection of the marine environment,
RECOGNIZING the need for appropriate organization of management
to enable it to respond to the need of those on board ships to achieve
and maintain high standards of safety and environmental protection,
RECOGNIZING ALSO that the most important means of preventing
maritime casualties and pollution of the sea from ships is to design,
construct, equip and maintain ships and to operate them with properly
trained crews in compliance with international conventions and standards
relating to maritime safety and pollution prevention,
NOTING that the Maritime Safety Committee is developing
requirements for adoption by Contracting Governments to the International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS),
1974, which will make compliance with the Code referred to in operative
paragraph 1 mandatory,
CONSIDERING that the early implementation of that Code would
greatly assist in improving safety at sea and protection of the marine
environment,
NOTING FURTHER that the Maritime Safety Committee and the
Marine Environment Protection Committee have reviewed resolution A.680(17)
and the Guidelines annexed thereto in developing the Code,
HAVING CONSIDERED the recommendations made by the Maritime
Safety Committee at its sixty-second session and by the Marine Environment
Protection Committee at its thirty-fourth session,
1. ADOPTS the International Management Code for
the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention (International
Safety Management (ISM) Code), set
out in the annex to the present resolution;
2. STRONGLY URGES Governments to implement the
ISM Code on a national basis, giving priority to passenger ships,
tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers and mobile offshore units which
are flying their flags, as soon as possible but not later than 1June
1998, pending development of the mandatory application of the Code;
3. REQUESTS Governments to inform the Maritime
Safety Committee and the Marine Environment Protection Committee of
the action they have taken in implementing the ISM
Code;
4. REQUESTS the Maritime Safety Committee and
the Marine Environment Protection Committee to develop Guidelines
for the implementation of the ISM Code;
5. REQUESTS ALSO the Maritime Safety Committee
and the Marine Environment Protection Committee to keep the Code and
its associated Guidelines under review and to amend them as necessary;
6. REVOKES resolution A.680(17).