Guidelines

Guidelines are recommendatory IMO texts adopted by Assembly, MSC, or MEPC resolution that explain how to meet a requirement or apply a uniform practice without imposing a binding obligation. They support conventions and codes by giving methods, criteria, or model procedures, for example the Guidelines on places of refuge (A.949(23), revised by A.1184(33)) or the guidelines for the development of a SEEMP. A recommendatory guideline can later be made mandatory by reference from a convention amendment. Until then it carries persuasive weight but is not enforceable in the way a convention provision is.