Safety Management on Warships: The Naval Ship Code

The concept of security and its practical application to warships has been established over the ages at the sole and exclusive discretion of the Administrations of the States under whose flag they were to serve. The design of this type of ship must be developed for specific purposes in periods of hostility, but at the same time, it must guarantee basic safety conditions when operating in peacetime. Excluded from the scope of application of the main maritime safety standards of the International Maritime Organization, the International Ship Safety Association has developed, at the request of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Naval Ship Code. The aim of this Code is to establish, based on the characteristics of this type of ship, a safety management system applicable to the main technical areas of the ship, guaranteeing minimum standards applicable to the ship both during its construction phase and throughout its useful life. This paper aims to explain the philosophy based on risk, the objective, and the basic structure of the Naval Code, as well as the complementary regulations to it, to provide an overview of the international regulations on safety in the field of the navy.