Code of Safe Working Practices for Merchant Seafarers
COSWP: the UK MCA instrument, its statutory force for UK ships, and why it is a national overlay rather than an IMO or ILO document.
The Code of Safe Working Practices for Merchant Seafarers, COSWP, is published by the United Kingdom Maritime and Coastguard Agency and is statutory for UK ships under the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels health and safety regulations. It is a detailed practical guide covering shipboard occupational safety from mooring to enclosed space entry, and it sits as a national overlay on the international baseline set out at enclosed space entry and tank inspection .
The full article will cover its scope, its legal status, its chapter structure and its revision cycle, and will draw out the chapters most often cited outside the United Kingdom.
It will also make a distinction the industry frequently loses. COSWP is a national instrument, and there is no document called the IMO/ILO Code of Safe Working Practices. The ILO instrument in this field is the code of practice Accident prevention on board ship at sea and in port, second edition 1996, which supports Convention No. 134.