The mandatory standard requiring an owner to run a documented safety management system, moving fault from the master to the shore organization.
The International Safety Management Code requires every company operating a ship to run a documented system covering operating procedures, emergency preparedness, incident reporting and maintenance, with a designated person ashore who has direct access to the highest level of management. Compliance takes the form of two certificates, one issued to the company and one to the ship, whose absence or withdrawal bars operation. Its legal reach goes beyond safety: by documenting what the company knew and what it decided, it makes the owner's personal fault provable, the very fault that defeats the carrier's defenses and its right to limit liability. Underwriters found in it both a selection criterion and a policy warranty, since a failing management system is the root cause of most major casualties. The problem solved is the routine attribution of accidents to the error of the officer on watch alone, when investigation almost always showed a chain of decisions taken ashore.
The code was born of the sinking of the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise on March 6, 1987 outside Zeebrugge, which killed 193 people because the bow doors had been left open: the Sheen report found that sloppiness infected the company from top to bottom. It became mandatory on July 1, 1998 for passenger ships, tankers and bulk carriers, and on July 1, 2002 for other cargo ships.
code international de gestion de la sécurité, système de gestion de la sécurité du navire