The paper describes the present state of the regulations concerning ship stability and it has been concluded that stability criteria including design requirements are insufficient for assuring safety. The main cause of the majority of stability casualties (about 80%) are operational factors that are related to human factor. The author suggests applying a risk analysis adopting a holistic approach to stability safety as an alternative of the future stability requirements currently under development. This approach fits into the concept of goaloriented approach to safety that is now recommended by the Marine Safety Committee. The author discusses also how human errors could be dealt with in risk analysis and he provides an example of risk contribution tree based on a casualty recor