---
name: aic-code-of-ethics
version: "1994"
date: 2026-07-29
category: ethics
title: AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice — a restatement
language: en
type: restatement
kind: code-of-ethics
license: CC-BY-4.0
source_url: https://www.culturalheritage.org/conservation-at-work/uphold-professional-standards/code
accessed: 2026-07-29
notes: "Restatement per IFP-22 Section 2.3. The Code is copyrighted by the American Institute for Conservation; this entry is the registry's own prose describing what the Code holds, as of the accessed date."
---

# AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice — a restatement

The American Institute for Conservation's Code of Ethics, approved in its current form in 1994 and paired with Guidelines for Practice and evolving commentaries, governs the conservation of cultural property — the paintings, books, textiles, buildings, and objects through which communities carry their past. It is included in this registry as the exemplar of a distinctive ethical shape: a code whose duties run simultaneously to *things that cannot speak for themselves*, to the people who made them, to present owners and users, to the profession, and to generations not yet born. The authoritative text is at the source URL; this entry describes what it holds in the registry's own words.

## What the Code holds

Thirteen numbered commitments organize the Code. The conservation professional pledges to hold the highest standards across all conservation activity — preventive care, examination, documentation, treatment, research, and education — and to let every action be governed by informed respect for the cultural property itself: its unique character and significance, and the person or people who created it. While society has the right to make appropriate use of cultural property, the professional serves as an advocate for its preservation.

Several commitments bound the professional's reach: practice only within the limits of personal competence and available facilities; never let constrained resources compromise the quality of what is done; and prefer methods and materials that, on current knowledge, do not adversely affect the property or foreclose its future examination, investigation, treatment, or use — the future-generations clause at the Code's center. Documentation is a duty in itself: examinations, investigations, and treatments produce permanent records and reports.

The remaining commitments address prevention (limiting deterioration through guidance on care, environment, handling, and transport), integrity and respect in professional relationships, the continuing growth of the field and one's own competence, open communication with allied professions and the public, the minimization of risks to coworkers, the public, and the environment, and the obligation to promote understanding of and adherence to the Code itself. The accompanying Guidelines for Practice apply these commitments to working situations — disclosure, contracts, fees, and the practicalities of a profession that mediates between owners and objects.

## Standing of this restatement

Prepared from the instrument as published at the source URL, read as of the accessed date. Corrections ship as a superseding version; this version remains published because citations to it remain outstanding (IFP-22, Sections 2.3 and 4).