International Maritime Organisation Standards

Department	Department for the Economy
Start date	27/11/2025
End date	11/12/2025
Type of consultation	White paper
Deadline for comments	12/12/2025
Responses publish date	16/12/2025

About the consultation

We would like your views on a proposal to:

update maritime legislation to reflect the international conventions Jersey has signed up to
include a mechanism within the legislation which enables the automatic
introduction of future amendments to the relevant IMO instruments. This is also known as ambulatory referencing

Consultation Paper: Draft IMO III Code Law Amendment

This legislative project has been split into 2 parts:

Part 1

This will amend the primary law to grant the power for the subordinate legislation, regulations and orders, to use ambulatory referencing.

(Draft Shipping (IMO Conventions) (Jersey) Amendment Law 202-)

Part 2

The updated legislation will be lodged in 2026 and will address the relevant subordinate legislation.

Project background

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is a UN agency which holds responsibility for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping.

Member States of the IMO are measured against the IMO's Instruments Implementation (III) Code, which provides a criteria to determine how compliant Member States are against the international maritime conventions to which they are contracting parties. As a member state, Jersey is must comply with these international maritime standards and is regularly audited against the code.

In 2022, a III Code audit, conducted by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) on behalf of the IMO, found that updates to IMO instruments, such as SOLAS 1974, the IMDG Code, and MARPOL Annexes I and II, were not reflected in Jersey’s legislation.

To rectify this, a project was commissioned by the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development to update Jersey's maritime law and introduce ambulatory referencing. This mechanism will allow future amendments to relevant IMO instruments to be automatically applied in Jersey's law. The Minister for Sustainable Economic Development will keep the right to opt-out of the updates based on recommendations from the Territorial Sea Coordination and Advisory Group (TSCAG).

As Jersey already accepted the underlying policy principles of these instruments, this is deemed the most suitable and effective approach.

How to submit comments to the consultation

This consultation has closed. No responses were received.

Responses to the consultation

No responses were received to this consultation.