The ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses, Revised for a Global Era

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) maintains a global Code of Ethics for Nurses that has guided practice across borders since it was first adopted in 1953. The current edition is the 2021 revision, the most heavily updated in years, and it folds in many of the ethical questions the COVID-19 pandemic forced to the surface. The clearest example is a new section on nurses and global health.

What the Code is for

The Code states the professional values, responsibilities, and accountabilities of nurses, and its purpose is to guide ethical practice. It gives you a framework for working through ethical dilemmas no matter your role or setting, and it lays a foundation that national laws, regulations, and professional standards can build on.

Work on the 2021 revision began in 2019, led by an expert steering group, ICN board members representing member countries, and ICN staff. Alongside English, the Code is published in Spanish, French, and German.

What changed

The revised Code is organized into four sections that map the main elements of ethical conduct:

• nurses and patients or other people requiring care
• nurses and practice
• nurses and the profession
• nurses and global health

The previous edition also had four sections: nurses and people, nurses and practice, nurses and the profession, and nurses and coworkers. The major change is the addition of global health, which centers the nurse's role in confronting the health inequities the pandemic laid bare.

The revision also takes on issues the earlier code never addressed: the digital explosion and social media, artificial intelligence in care settings, human genome technology, population health and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the health consequences of environmental and climate change.

A living document

Each section pairs its standards with a chart showing how they apply in practice, which helps you translate principle into action. The Code only means anything as a living document, applied to the real conditions of nursing wherever care is delivered. Every nurse and nursing student should study it, reflect on it, and make it part of daily practice, in direct care, education, research, management, or policy.