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Handbook of WMA Policies
World Medical Association ½ D-1997-02-2007
WMA DECLARATION OF HAMBURG
CONCERNING SUPPORT FOR MEDICAL DOCTORS
REFUSING TO PARTICIPATE IN, OR TO CONDONE,
THE USE OF TORTURE OR OTHER FORMS OF CRUEL,
INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT
Adopted by the 49th
WMA General Assembly, Hamburg, Germany, November 1997
and reaffirmed by the 176th
WMA Council Session, Berlin, Germany, May 2007
PREAMBLE
1. On the basis of a number of international ethical declarations and guidelines subs-
cribed to by the medical profession, medical doctors throughout the world are pro-
hibited from countenancing, condoning or participating in the practice of torture or
other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures for any reason.
2. Primary among these declarations are the World Medical Association’s International
Code of Medical Ethics, Declaration of Geneva, Declaration of Tokyo, and Resolu-tion
on Physician Participation in Capital Punishment; the Standing Committee of European
Doctors’ Statement of Madrid; the Nordic Resolution Concerning Physician
Involvement in Capital Punishment; and, the World Psychiatric Association’s Decla-
ration of Hawaii.
3. However, none of these declarations or statements addresses explicitly the issue of what
protection should be extended to medical doctors if they are pressured, called upon, or
ordered to take part in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment. Nor do these declarations or statements express explicit sup-port for, or
the obligation to protect, doctors who encounter or become aware of such procedures.
RESOLUTION
4. The World Medical Association (WMA) hereby reiterates and reaffirms the responsi-
bility of the organised medical profession:
i. to encourage doctors to honour their commitment as physicians to serve humanity
and to resist any pressure to act contrary to the ethical principles governing their
dedication to this task;
ii. to support physicians experiencing difficulties as a result of their resistance to any
such pressure or as a result of their attempts to speak out or to act against such in-
human procedures; and,
iii. to extend its support and to encourage other international organisations, as well as
the national member associations (NMAs) of the World Medical Association, to
D-1997-02-2007½ Berlin
Refusing Torture
support physicians encountering difficulties as a result of their attempts to act in
accordance with the highest ethical principles of the profession.
5. Furthermore, in view of the continued employment of such inhumane procedures in
many countries throughout the world, and the documented incidents of pressure upon
medical doctors to act in contravention to the ethical principles subscribed to by the
profession, the WMA finds it necessary:
i. to protest internationally against any involvement of, or any pressure to involve,
medical doctors in acts of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment;
ii. to support and protect, and to call upon its NMAs to support and protect, physi-
cians who are resisting involvement in such inhuman procedures or who are
working to treat and rehabilitate victims thereof, as well as to secure the right to
uphold the highest ethical principles including medical confidentiality;
iii. to publicise information about and to support doctors reporting evidence of tor-
ture and to make known proven cases of attempts to involve physicians in such
procedures; and,
iv. to encourage national medical associations to ask corresponding academic autho-
rities to teach and investigate in all schools of medicine and hospitals the conse-
quences of torture and its treatment, the rehabilitation of the survivors, the docu-
mentation of torture, and the professional protection described in this Declara-
tion.