Argo, a joint IOC-World Meteorological Organization program, is today the pillar of the ocean climate warning system with consequent benefits for the protection of life and property and effective planning for the effects of seasonal to inter-annual climate variability, and development of severe weather systems. Argo has revolutionized the collection of information from the ocean and the access to this information through a free and unrestricted data distribution policy. The state of the global ocean is examined by Argoon a regular basis

In the absence of a specific international legal instrument regulating profiling floats, drifting buoys, and other similar objects deployed in the oceans, and given that with existing surface drifting buoys, some of these new instruments may drift into waters under national jurisdiction, IOC Member States gave the mandate in 2003 that the legal issues associated with the collection of data in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) should be incorporated into the mandate of the IOC Advisory Body of Experts on the Law of the Sea (IOC/ABE–LOS).