Ethical Standards

Standards of Professional Conduct for Prosecution Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, The Code of Conduct for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, The Code of Professional Conduct for Counsel and Prosecutors before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers

In every educational institution, in every country and generation, there is a struggle between corrupt practices and the continuing quest for high ethical standards.  An educational institution is poorer if its members engage in corrupt practices.  Such misfeasance wastes limited resources, demoralizes participants, and adversely affects productivity.  The nature of this corruption is multi-faceted, and observes no geographic boundaries.  It exists in every culture.

In some of these cases, educational corruption can be quite subtle.  This is true where conduct that is neither criminal, fraudulent, nor a breach of fiduciary duty nevertheless undercuts the moral foundations of the educational enterprise.  For example, if academic honors are conferred based not on merit, but on political loyalty, the process is arguably corrupt.  When incidents such as this happen, the educational enterprise is diminished in a very real sense.

In order to combat these pernicious practices, there are certain basic principles that should shape efforts to deter, expose, and penalize corruption in academic institutions.  Once thoroughly considered and understood, these principles can be translated into “best practices” that can be followed by educational enterprises aspiring to high ethical standards, and used to evaluate and condemn ethically unacceptable practices of recurring importance.

The recent increase in the level of accounting scandals recorded in large
organizations generates disrepute and frequently paints the accounting profession as
unethical. A huge gap exists between the documented form of ethical codes and what
is obtainable in real practice.

Stressing that the pronoun "I" picks out one and only one person in the world (i.e., me), I argue against Hunt (and other like-minded Rand commentators) that the supposed "hard case" of destructive people who do not care for their own lives poses no special difficulty for rational egoism. I conclude that the proper response to a terse objection like "What about suicide bombers?" is the equally terse assertion "But I don't want to get blown up."

Through the case study of specialty coffee, this paper examines the role of different kinds of standards in determining the governance features of international trade. The specialty coffee industry is the most vibrant and fast growing segment of a global coffee market that is otherwise marred in a deep crisis. Has this growth been beneficial to coffee farmers? To what extent? For which groups of farmers and in what countries? What has been the role of standards in this process? What kinds of specialty coffees have more potential to promote a more equal distribution of value added along the marketing chain?

This policy paper discusses issues related to information, contract management, transparency and ethical standards to improve local units of government contracting out for case management in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Existing research points to contracting out taking place in a weak macroeconomics context (Petersen et al., 2018; Domberger and Jensen 1997) with budgetary constraints that impact a government’s provision of public assistance schemes (Neil, 2004) to review and change service delivery mechanisms. These changes contribute to a more decentralised administration and also reduce the overall quality and performance of the government. Moreover, the administration of governance faces reduced access to information, increased accountability/transparency problems to administer public business, and presents major challenges to institutional compliance and performance management (Berle and Means, 1932). Although the agency relation shows certain local units of government in transitional economies have failed or are inappropriate to administer huge sum of taxpayers’ money in contracting out for welfare governance, there is still little policy study research in CEE countries analysing the improvement of local units of government overall contracting out for welfare governance. This also impacts third country nationals and disadvantaged ethnic-minorities employment-related transition in the selected entities. Based on a qualitative cross-country oriented research approach with fewer country comparisons, this policy paper analyses and assesses both centrally directed and locally initiated contracting out governance in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The findings show certain service provision is negotiated and exempt from open access to information; contracts are often treated as secret, and the existence of unethical behaviour, which distorts the core value of trust in corporate governance and impacts third country nationals and (ethnic) minority citizens’ transition to work in the selected entities. As a matter of fact, the research recommends open access to (relevant) information, up-skilling and increased public service staff, and open book accounting to combine accountability, integrity, and ethical standards in the formation, delivery and implementation of public service. Not meeting these recommendations may reinforce fraud, penalise vulnerability and belongings, as well as weaken the economy in a global competitive market spectrum

Prompted by the thesis that an organism’s umwelt possesses not just a descriptive dimension, but a normative one as well, some have sought to annex semiotics with ethics. Yet the pronouncements made in this vein have consisted mainly in rehearsing accepted moral intuitions, and have failed to concretely further our knowledge of why or how a creature comes to order objects in its environment in accordance with axiological charges of value or disvalue. For want of a more explicit account, theorists writing on the topic have relied almost exclusively on semiotic insights about perception originally designed as part of a sophisticated refutation of idealism. The end result, which has been a form of direct givenness, has thus been far from convincing. In an effort to bring substance to the right-headed suggestion that values are rooted in the biological and conform to species-specific requirements, we present a novel conception that strives to make explicit the elemental structure underlying umwelt normativity. Building and expanding on the seminal work of Ayn Rand in metaethics, we describe values as an intertwined lattice which takes a creature’s own embodied life as its ultimate standard; and endeavour to show how, from this, all subsequent valuations can in principle be determined.

Public Procurement is one of the most hotly discussed topic in the Kenya and Africa public domains. It is through flawed public procurement that billions of dollars were lost by the Kenyan tax payer over the twenty several years. This conceptual research had the overall objective of investigating the factors affecting the ethical standards in public procurement in Kenya. The study culled its variables from the Trevino Person –Situation Interactionist Model of Decision-Making. The study established that individual factors are the leading variable affecting the ethical standards in public procurement in the country. Other factors are environmental and organizational culture. The study recommends frequent independent procurement audits and rigorous monitoring to ensure compliance to the procurement Code of Conduct as a way of enhancing the ethical standards in public procurement. There also has to be in place proper documentation of all public procurement activities to ensure complete ...

Obaveštajni rad je po definiciji suprotstavljen načelu javnosti i transparentnosti upravljanja u elementarno pravičnoj državi. Kada on dobije kriminalistička obeležja, to jest kada je usmeren prema sopstvenim građanima, „na unutra”, ka samom sistemu, onda je njegov potencijal da, u slučaju zloupotrebe ili nedovoljno promišljene upotrebe, ugrozi poverenje u sistem i podrije njegovu stabilnost, izrazito prisutan. Upravo stoga zakonsko regulisanje kriminalističko-obaveštajnog rada nije dovoljno sa tačke gledišta zaštite legitimiteta kako represivnog sistema, tako i ukupnog političkog i institucionalnog sistema, a uloga etičkih standarda je da dopune, suze i dodatno regulišu suviše široko polje omeđeno zakonskim ovlašćenjima i operativnim pravilima. Uloga je svakog represivnog organa da samostalno donese i održava etičke standarde, u konsultacijama sa stručnjacima i poštujući hijerarhiju institucija, jer je iskustvo pokazalo da je takozvana unutrašnja kontrola, to jest kontrola od strane kolega i saradnika, uzajamna, nerepresivna i bez neposrednih negativnih posledica za one koji se kontrolišu, istovremeno najdelotvornija na svakodnevnom nivou. Upravo takva vrsta kontrole proističe iz etičke, za razliku od zakonske regulative.

The concept of distributed moral responsibility (DMR) has a long history. When it is understood as being entirely reducible to the sum of (some) human, individual, and already morally loaded actions, then the allocation of DMR, and hence of praise and reward or blame and punishment, may be pragmatically difficult, but not conceptually problematic. However, in distributed environments it is increasingly possible that a network of agents, some human, some artificial (e.g. a program) and some hybrid (e.g. a group of people working as a team thanks to a software platform) may cause distributed moral actions (DMAs). These are morally good or evil (i.e., morally loaded) actions caused by local interactions that are in themselves neither good nor evil (morally neutral). In this article, I analyse DMRs that are due to DMAs and argue in favour of the allocation, by default and overridably, of full moral responsibility (faultless responsibility) to all the nodes/agents in the network causally relevant for bringing about the DMA in question, independently of intentionality. The mechanism proposed is inspired by, and adapts, three concepts: back propagation from network theory, strict liability from jurisprudence, and common knowledge from epistemic logic.

Wie eine Vielzahl an aktuellen Problembeispielen zeigt, geht die Betrachtung der Integration ethischer Anforderungen in Softwareentwicklungsprozesse weit über die reine Produkthaftung hinaus – vielmehr geht es um die Frage „welche Regeln gelten sollen, um ethische Maschinen entwickeln zu können und wie diese ausgestaltet sein müssen, damit sie eingehalten werden (können)" [Zuber et al. 2021, S. 3]. Das hier vorgelegte kursorische Kurzreview soll einen ersten Überblick des Themenfeldes liefern sowie die Identifikation derzeit offener Fragestellungen von zentraler Bedeutung sowie wesentlicher laufender Projekte im betrachteten Forschungsfeld unterstützen.

Excerpt: While buying a cup of coffee at a local café one morning, I was transported to an exotic far-off land. Immersed in the aroma of coffee brewing and surrounded by pictures of farmers picking coffee and their children smiling, I could imagine who had grown the coffee in my mug. Marketing materials littered the countertop, thanking me for buying fair trade certified coffee and telling me that I was making a difference and that fair trade works. My single cup of coffee was said to help poor farmers. One of the posters declared, “every purchase matters,” and another said I was helping end poverty “one cup at a time.” The promotional materials explained that my purchase brought me into a direct and intimate relationship with farmers as if the handle of my coffee mug was a farmer’s hand I was shaking to congratulate him or her on a job well done.
          Fair trade marketing and advocacy rely on the idea that fair trade increases connectedness between Global South producers and Global North consumers. While fair trade does reduce the number of intermediaries in the supply chain as compared to the free trade system for most commodities (Raynolds 2002; Nicholls and Opal 2005; Adams and Raisborough 2008, 1169), it also serves to reinforce racist and colonial distinctions between the poor Global South farmer and the benevolent Global North consumer. Fair trade may channel slightly more income into agricultural communities, but it fails to address the colonial and capitalist structures that produce the impoverishment of farmers on an ongoing basis.

"Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy: A Participatory Public Policy Process

Highlights and Key Findings:

• This chapter is an analytic narrative of how Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy was written. This empirically grounded policy story offers a practical example for others to follow.
• A municipal Ethical Purchasing Policy is one way local communities can contribute to ethical trade efforts aimed at avoiding tragedies like the 24 April 2013 garment factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh, that killed 1,129 workers.
• Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy was written by a city task force comprising two city councilors, two city managers, and representatives of several businesses, unions, and civil society organizations with expertise on international labour standards, Fair Trade certification, and ethical purchasing of global commodities.
• Participation by city managers was key because policies solely crafted by city council might not take into account the practicalities of implementing a new policy while still following existing policies. Including city managers led to successful implementation and ensured the policy saved the city money.
• Participation by community members lent legitimacy to the city’s policy and helped ensure that the policy met international ethical trade norms for union-made garments and Fair Trade certified agricultural commodities including coffee, tea, and chocolate.

On 17 February 2005, Vancouver became the first Canadian municipality to adopt an Ethical Purchasing Policy (EPP) pertaining to union-made garments and Fair Trade certified coffee, tea, and chocolate. The EPP was crafted with a high level of participation by businesses, unions, and civil society organizations. The policy’s social justice ethos stands out in an ongoing era of neoliberal retrenchment of progressive public policies. Other Canadian cities, such as Calgary, Alberta, have since followed Vancouver’s lead in ethical purchasing. Vancouver’s EPP was written by a city task force that included two city councilors, two city managers, and representatives of several businesses, unions, and civil society organizations with expertise on international labour standards, Fair Trade certification, and ethical procurement through global commodity chains. This chapter is an institutional ethnography that focuses on the policy writing process and the standardized processes that comprise public participation, public decision-making, and public administration.

The chapter is empirically grounded in seven semi-structured interviews of 30 to 150 minutes in length with the two city councilors that chaired the policy writing process, two city managers (interviewed a second time together) that oversaw the implementation of the process, one of which participated in writing the policy, and a Fair Trade activist and a union organizer that participated in the writing process. These interviews were complemented with participant observation and textual analysis. Participant observation was conducted both in real-time in activist meetings and in city council meetings and reflexively from my experience as a Canadian Fair Trade activist-researcher. The interviews and observational work helped identify key texts for analysis, including the EPP and the connected Supplier Code of Conduct (SCC), council meeting minutes, minutes of standing committees of council, reports to council by city managers, and a critical analysis of the policy written by the Maquila Solidarity Network, a Toronto-based anti-sweatshop advocacy group. The research took place from January 2006 to August 2007 as part of a larger study in which I was involved alongside sociologist Dorothy E. Smith for a community-university research alliance called "Rural Women Making Change."

Despite concerted efforts to enforce ethical standards, transgressions continue to plague US corporations. This paper investigates whether the way in which a corporation pursues its goals can influence ethical violations, manifested as involvement in discrimination. We test this hypothesis among franchises, which employ a considerable amount of low-income workers adversely affected by discrimination. Drawing upon Regulatory Mode Theory, we perform a linguistic analysis of franchise mission statements to determine their degree of locomotion and assessment language. EEOC archival data for the past decade reveals that regulatory mode predicts franchise involvement in discrimination. Discriminatory behavior is associated with franchises whose mission statements motivate employees to embrace urgent action (locomotion mode) over thoughtful consideration (assessment mode). Two experiments demonstrate that participants exposed to high locomotion mission statements tend to disregard ethical standards due to their need for expediency, making significantly more discriminatory managerial decisions than those exposed to high assessment mission statements.

This study aimed to develop a list of ethical standards for the use of computers and the Internet by faculty members in the Arab educational environment. 153 faculty members were selected randomly from academic institutions in Egypt, Oman, Bahrain and Jordan. The findings of the study referred to the importance of these standards and to the ability of Arab educational faculty members for coping with such standards. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the views of respondents, which can be attributed to gender, academic rank, educational institution and/or experience. In addition to the recommendations given, the study has developed an integrated framework of standards and how to teach and adopt in the curriculum.

These fully-annotated slides outline the results of the first (ever) 5-yearly revision effort by the ASA Committee on Professional Ethics (COPE). As of the date of this presentation (12 August 2021), the first draft of the revisions have been completed. Remaining work includes editorial work (wordsmithing) on the proposed revisions and the submission of the final draft to the ASA Board for their consideration (and approval). These slides were prepared and presented by the co-Chair of the 2021 Working Group on Revising the Guidelines (RET) for/at JSM2021, but represent the extensive and thoughtful efforts of the entire Working Group (WG), including the COPE Chair Jing Cao-co-Chair of the 2021 Revisions WG-and three other COPE members: Jason Gillikin; Matt Rotelli; and Marcia Weisman. Many of the COPE members joined the weekly meetings of the WG, but WG members were specifically responsible for marshaling input for two Guideline Principles each and both facilitating discussions and debates until a first draft of revisions were completed, and summarizing the discussion for presentation to the full COPE (and ultimately, the Board). These slides-and notes-will be summarized for the Proceedings of JSM 2021; it is uncertain if the Board will have had time to consider the proposed revisions before the Proceedings are published. Thus, this presentation (and the Proceedings article) represent the then-current report by the WG on the proposed revisions to the ASA Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice.

Efforts to foster ethics in government should begin at the local, rather than state or national, level.  City officials and employees make a broad range of decisions that affect the welfare of citizens in many ways.  Those actions determine to a large extent whether, on an everyday basis, people have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that government provides.  Focusing efforts on city government ethics may also be the best way to build public support for high standards of conduct at all levels of government.  If the public comes to expect (and demand) fair treatment and ethical conduct from city officials and employees, they are more likely to have the same expectations for those who hold the reins of power in state and national arenas.

However, building an effective legal regime for regulating ethics in city government is a task that is neither simple nor inexpensive.  Further, it is an endeavor which cannot even ensure good government.  If the persons who hold public positions are unwilling to aspire to high standards and act in furtherance of the common good, no ethics code can fully substitute for that lack of moral ambition.

Yet, the enactment and enforcement of a good ethics code can be an important step in treating individuals fairly, encouraging business growth, fostering institutional strength, and empowering the citizenry.  For these reasons, it is appropriate for a city to spend valuable resources on adopting and periodically revising a good ethics code, teaching officials and employees about their responsibilities, and enforcing high standards for the conduct of public officials.

Clinical tools involving immersive virtual reality (VR) may bring several advantages to cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. However, there are some technical and methodological pitfalls. The American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) and the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) raised 8 key issues pertaining to Computerized Neuropsychological Assessment Devices. These issues pertain to: (1) the safety and effectivity; (2) the identity of the end-user; (3) the technical hardware and software features; (4) privacy and data security; (5) the psychometric properties; (6) examinee issues; (7) the use of reporting services; and (8) the reliability of the responses and results. The VR Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL) is the first immersive VR neuropsychological battery with enhanced ecological validity for the assessment of everyday cognitive functions by offering a pleasant testing experience without inducing cybersickness. The VR-EAL meets the criteria of the NAN and AACN, addresses the methodological pitfalls, and brings advantages for neuropsychological testing. However, there are still shortcomings of the VR-EAL, which should be addressed. Future iterations should strive to improve the embodiment illusion in VR-EAL and the creation of an open access VR software library should be attempted. The discussed studies demonstrate the utility of VR methods in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology.

Favouritism and nepotism are endemic in many parts of the world. The life chances and quality of life of billions of people are limited by unethical and/or irresponsible conduct. There is often a wide gulf between rhetoric and reality. Corporate ethics and value statements are often bland and may have little influence on individual and collective decisions.

Many ethical dilemmas end up in board rooms. Making the wrong calls can damage trust and reputations. Boards need leaders and directors who instinctively know what the right thing to do is in different situations. Directors should exercise independent judgement and avoid obligations to particular people or sectional interests.

The recent increase in the level of accounting scandals recorded in large organizations generates disrepute and frequently paints the accounting profession as unethical. A huge gap exists between the documented form of ethical codes and what is obtainable in real practice. This study evaluated the adequacy of ethical codes and conducts in the accounting profession in Nigeria. Survey Research design was used through the administration of questionnaires. The population comprises of to 3,200 ANAN and ICAN members. Obtained responses were subjected under critical hypothetical tests based on outlined hypotheses. Findings reveal that code of ethics in Accounting is adequate for Professional Accountancy Practice in Nigeria and that lack of awareness of ethical standards is the only statistically accepted that inhibits strict adherence to the breach of ethical accounting practice in Nigeria.

This article puts forward an argument in favor of small farmer fair trade based on an analysis of the differences between small farmer fair trade and plantation fair trade with examples drawn from the coffee and tea sectors. The article also scrutinizes the Fair Trade USA split from Fairtrade International and the proliferation of Fair Trade labels.

The article starts with a brief and concise definition of public sector ethics. It traces the origin of public sector ethics in the United Kingdom (UK). Also, corruption and unethical conduct amongst others are in focus too. An analysis of the expected ethical standards in the public sector and mechanisms used to maintain such standards are also in focus. The mechanisms include codes of conduct and the use of regulatory bodies. To remedy the defects inherent in the extant public sector ethics in the UK, some recommendations will be made. The conclusion will posit that the public sector in the UK has higher ethical standards than the private or business sector in the UK. This paper is a general review of the extant literature on public sector ethics in the United Kingdom and its main finding is that public sector ethics are an integral part of the organizational structure of the public sector in the United Kingdom.

Many Americans today expect that the law can, should, and will be used to ensure a level playing field in public life.  Americans expect the law to eliminate, insofar as possible, any unfair advantage that might be gained through the use of special connections to those who exercise the power of government.  There are numerous rules applicable to judges, lawyers, and public officials that each seek to promote equal treatment for all persons by limiting the ability of persons to use special connections and privileged relationships to gain an advantage in public affairs.

There were two threads of development in America during the twentieth century that may account for the presence of such rules.  The first involves the search for social equality, including the struggles between the rich and poor, black and white, and residents and new immigrants.  The second relates to a very different but parallel search for ethical certainty.  The rise of consumerism, the nature of the American media, and the “statutorification” of American law have been integral parts of that quest.

These developments suggest that the present American preoccupation with ethics in government is neither surprising nor likely to cease.  Yet, the pursuit of good government may pose a difficult challenge.  The task may be to separate the types of favors and relationships that corrupt government and abuse power from those that do nothing more than smooth the rough edges of an imperfect legal system.  It is not easy to draw the line separating practices which give government a human face and make its actions efficient from other forms of conduct which unfairly handicap innocent persons.  The challenge is to decide how much ethics in government is enough, but not too much.  That, of course, is a difficult question.

Th is article presents risk management issues in hospitals. It explains changing legal and economical environment of hospitals in Poland, where certain factors brings activity of the hospital close to the activity of the entrepreneur. Th e article presents mutual connection between quality management and risk management. Authors explains essence of risk management in hospital, which is deepened on the basis of the example of hospitools® by Ecclesia. Th is system rely on practical, legal and medical approach. From the practical perspective it uses claims database of the whole market in order to establish and classify adverse events in the medical treatment process and to identify risks in this process. From the legal perspective risk management system refers in particular to patient consent and its scope, as well as to the requirements regarding medical documentation. Medical aspect of the risk management system refers to information on medical treatment process, patient consent, org...