The term Nuremberg Code refers to the set of standards for conducting research with human subjects that was developed in 1947 at the end of World War II, in the trial of 23 Nazi doctors and scientists in Nuremberg, Germany, for war crimes that included medical experiments on persons designated as non-German nationals. The trial of individual Nazi leaders by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, the supranational institution charged with determining justice in the transition to democracy, set a vital precedent for international jurisprudence.

The Nuremberg Code was designed to protect the autonomy and rights of human subjects in medical research, as compared with the Hippocratic Oath applied in the therapeutic, paternalistic patient-physician relationship. It is recognized as initiating the modern international human rights movement during ...