Life-Saving Appliances require a regular testing and maintenance program in addition to updating of plans and signage when relevant equipment, arrangements or structural changes occur. 

The International Life-Saving Appliance (LSA) Code was adopted by IMO#s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) at its 66th session (June 1996) by resolution MSC.48(66). It provides international requirements for the life-saving appliances required by chapter III of the 1974 SOLAS Convention, including personal life-saving appliances, such as lifebuoys, lifejackets, immersion suits, anti-exposure suits and thermal protective aids; visual aids, such as parachute flares, hand flares and buoyant smoke signals; survival craft, such as life rafts and lifeboats; rescue boats; launching and embarkation appliances and marine evacuation systems line throwing appliances; and general alarm and public address systems.

The Code was made mandatory by resolution MSC.47(66) under SOLAS regulation III/3.10, whereby regulation III/34 determines that all life-saving appliances and arrangements shall comply with its requirements.

The Code entered into force on 1 July 1998 and has been amended in accordance with SOLAS Article VIII as follows:

.1 by the May 2006 amendments, which were adopted by resolution MSC.207(81) and entered into force on 1 July 2010;
.2 by the December 2006 amendments, which were adopted by resolution MSC.218(82) and entered into force on 1 July 2008; and
.3 by the 2008 amendments, which were adopted by resolution MSC.272(85) and entered into force on 1 July 2010.

The consolidated text of the LSA Code in the present publication incorporates the above three sets of amendments, including the two sets entering into force on 1 July 2010, since they were deemed to have been accepted in accordance with the SOLAS amendment procedures on 1 January 2010, and therefore automatically entered into force on 1 July 2010.