Nuremberg Code

The Nuremberg Code is a set of research-ethics principles issued in 1947 after the Doctors’ Trial. It makes voluntary consent central to human experimentation.

Informed consent: Permission for an intervention given freely after a person receives and understands relevant information. The Code’s first principle requires voluntary consent for human experiments.
Doctors’ Trial: The first of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, prosecuting German physicians for wartime crimes. The Code was issued after this trial exposed abuses in medical experimentation.
Declaration of Helsinki: A World Medical Association statement setting ethical principles for medical research involving human participants. It developed a later, profession-led framework for research ethics after the Code.
Geneva Convention: A set of international treaties establishing humanitarian protections in armed conflict. Unlike the Code’s research principles, these treaties govern conduct during war.
Human subject research: Systematic investigation involving living people to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge. The Code sets ethical limits on this broader category of research.
Nuremberg trials: A series of postwar trials prosecuting major German officials and others for crimes committed during World War II. The Doctors’ Trial formed one proceeding within this larger series.
Belmont Report: A 1979 U.S. report outlining respect for persons, beneficence, and justice in human-subject research. It recast research protections in a framework distinct from the Code’s ten principles.
Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences: An international organization that develops guidance on health research ethics and related scientific issues. Its guidelines address contemporary research settings beyond the Code’s postwar origins.
Research ethics: Principles and practices governing the ethical design and conduct of research. The Code is a foundational statement within this wider field.
Nazi human experimentation: Coerced and often lethal experiments conducted on prisoners by Nazi physicians during World War II. These abuses shaped the ethical principles articulated after the war.

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