Sustainable shipping is a direction for the development of international maritime law legal instruments promoted within the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and resulting from three practical requirements for shipping: “no casualties, no pollution and service on time”. The IMO recognized that the global shipping industry operating within the international regulatory framework is heading towards a “sustainable future”, which requires IMO to further develop its legal instruments, including technical and operational measures to deal with global problems. The main focus is on: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships; reducing the sulfur content of marine fuel; ballast water control and management; the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution, including plastic pollution, and the effective protection of particularly sensitive marine and coastal ecosystems; as well as improving transport efficiency through electronic information exchange, digitization in shipping and increasing the participation of women in the maritime community. The aim of this paper is to present sustainable shipping as a direction for development of legal instruments of international maritime law, based on the principle of prevention and the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment, well-established in the law of the sea.