A CLAIM HAS been recirculating on Facebook in recent weeks that mask mandates are a “war crime” that break the Nuremberg Code.

Mask mandates have been used in many countries to reduce the spread of Covid-19. In Ireland, people must wear masks in shops, on public transport and in healthcare settings. 

You can be fined €80 if you are caught without a face covering or a reasonable excuse for doing so.

The Nuremberg Code is a list of ethical standards for carrying out medical and scientific experiments on people that was adopted after the Second World War.

The Code was drawn up as a result of the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg as a direct response to the atrocities carried out by Nazi doctors on people in concentration camps, who could not consent to what was done to them. The British Medical Journal has described how the ten guidelines set out in the Code “established a new standard of ethical medical behaviour for the post-WWII human rights era”. 

The Code has been referenced online repeatedly by anti-restriction activists to oppose various Covid measures – including against vaccine mandates in the UK – and has even been cited by MPs in submissions against their introduction (FullFact have an article on this topic here).

The claim that mask mandates are a war crime has circulated at different times during the pandemic, but has reappeared in recent weeks.

The claim usually appears in the form of a screenshot of the following text:

Article 6: Section 3

In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority, substitute for an individuals (sic) informed consent.

Leaders should be aware that mandating masks on citizens of a nation and preventing their access to food, healthcare, transport or education if they don’t comply, is a war crime. Masks or any other medical intervention must remain voluntary.

The text is typed out in an unusual ‘typewriter’ font, and in some screenshots there are red lines used to emphasise a certain part of the text.

The Claim

The claim we’re examining is that a rule mandating that masks be worn in certain settings is “a war crime” and breaches the Nuremberg Code on ethical experiments.

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The Evidence

A judgment by the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg laid down ten standards to which physicians must conform when carrying out medical experiments on humans and is now accepted worldwide.

The ten Nuremberg Code standards include: that the voluntary consent of the person is “absolutely essential” before an experiment can be conducted; that the experiment should have a clear purpose for the good of society and that it should not be  “random and unnecessary”; that the experiment should “avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury”. 

The Nuremberg Code doesn’t mention masks, mask mandates, preventing access to food or healthcare, or war crimes. None of the wording in this screenshot appears in the Nuremberg Code. 

Additionally, there is no ‘Article 6: Section 3′ of the Code, which is quite short. Instead, the sixth principle states, in full: “The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.”

The Nuremberg Code covers medical experiments and scientific research. Masks are categorised as a public health measure, which would not fall under the Nuremberg’s Code purview. 

Where is the screenshot from?

Part of the text in the widely-shared screenshot is not found in the Nuremberg Code, but it is included under Article 6 of UNESDOC’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. UNESDOC is the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. 

This UNESDOC document also deals with the ethical issues related to medicine and life sciences in relation to humans, taking social, legal and environmental issues into account.

Under Article 6 of that document, which deals with research carried out on groups of people, it states:

In appropriate cases of research carried out on a group of persons or a community, additional agreement of the legal representatives of the group or community concerned may be sought. In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent. 

The emboldened part of the above quote is the first part of the claim shared on social media. It is about medical research, and has no mention of masks. 

The second part of the claim, which specifically mentions mask mandates being a war crime, is not in the UNESDOC document. It isn’t clear where it originated from, although USA Today has noted that the wording is very similar to a letter sent to politicians in Connecticut in early 2021 by a person arguing that people should have the right to choose whether to get vaccinated. 

This UNESDOC document doesn’t mention masks or mask mandates at all, but it does mention access to medical care and improving health in the developing world by creating new vaccines and improving childhood vaccines, among other issues.

In summation, mask mandates do not break the Nuremberg Code, and are not a war crime. Masks, mask mandates and war crimes are not mentioned in the Code. 

A part of the claim is included in a UNESDOC document, but it does not deem masks or mask mandates a war crime or a breach of the Nuremberg Code.

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