The Maritime Safety Committee, at its sixty-sixth session
(28 May to 6 June 1996) and the Marine Environment Protection Committee
at its thirty-eighth session (1 to 10 July 1996), approved Guidelines
for a structure of an integrated system of contingency planning for
shipboard emergencies, as set out in annex.
Shipboard emergency plans are required under the provisions
of chapters III and IX of SOLAS 1974 and Annex
I of MARPOL 73/78.
The Committees recognize that many ships operate with existing
comprehensive and effective emergency plans. It is not the purpose
of this circular to impose a new mandatory system or to supersede
existing systems that are tried and tested, such as the Shipboard
Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (SOPEP). Rather
these Guidelines are to assist companies that may not have implemented
an emergency planning system or that recognize that their system can
be improved by using a structure for an integrated system.
These annexed Guidelines were developed, consistent with
the human element principles contained in MSC/Circ.763, with the objective
of being useful and easily applied by seafarers. They contain information
to assist in the preparation of shipboard emergency contingencies
and are intended for the preparation and the use of a modular structure
for an integrated system of contingency planning for shipboard emergencies.
The Committees consider that a proliferation of non-harmonized shipboard
emergency plans justifies the development of an integrated system
and the harmonization of a structure of emergency plans in such a
system.
Member Governments are invited to bring the Guidelines,
set out at annex, to the attention
of their maritime Administrations and relevant industry organizations.