Southern Ocean Exploration is a not-for-profit group governed by a set of key principles:

1. Only dive with like-minded divers displaying the correct attitude in a unified Team.
2. Only dive within their certification level and to depths at which they are current.
3. Conduct all diving operations in accordance with the Southern Ocean Exploration Diving Operations Manuals.
4. Support other like-minded organisations and teams and to assist other divers in wreck diving.
5. Provide all data and information to the relevant government authority free of charge.
6. Are Australasian Institute of Maritime Archaeology/National Archaeology Society trained.
7. Support the principles of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage of 2 November 2001.
8. Support the principles International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Burra Charter.