The intact stability standards for fishing vessels are considered in their historical development, all fairly recent. Regional differences, that result in the average size of vessels, are considerable together with an extremely poor harmonization of the different regimes of safety. A decisive effort for improvements in the safety levels and in general in the living conditions in the fisheries sector has been undertaken in the frame of the close cooperation established between the IMO, ILO and FAO. In this context, are at an advanced stage of development regulations, mostly of voluntary application, which greatly extend the lower extreme of the interval of ship lengths previously considered by the Torremolinos Convention. With regard to the latter, a major effort is underway to get to the ratification and entry into force internationally as an IMO instrument of the revised Torremolinos Protocol as it results after the Diplomatic Conference held in Capetown in 2012. In this review paper, present situation is critically analyzed also in the light of the contributions given by the research group operating at University of Trieste.
