This paper calls for a critical re-evaluation of research ethics in applied linguistics (AL) and second language acquisition (SLA) research, particularly concerning the ethical treatment of members of the disabled community. Historically, AL and SLA research has often perpetuated deficit views of disability by focusing on cognitive or affective differences. This paper examines the ethical implications of deficit-based research and tensions between institutional research policies and everyday ethical dilemmas through a disability justice lens. To address these gaps within the field, we propose an emancipatory, rights-based framework that fundamentally reimagines research ethics in AL and SLA by centering respect, representation and reciprocity, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and accessibility. Through a focus on disability rights and actionable guidelines, this framework seeks to dismantle systemic barriers in research ethics. It also highlights more equitable and inclusive research practices for disabled people and marginalized groups in AL and SLA research.

This memorial essay introduces the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics special issue on supported decision-making in research by honoring David T. Wasserman (1953–2025), a major organizer of the NIH workshop from which the issue emerged and a coauthor of two papers in the volume. It situates supported decision-making in research as an emerging approach that aims to make participation by people with cognitive disabilities possible without displacing their agency through default reliance on legally authorized representatives. The essay highlights Wasserman’s distinctive contribution to this developing area. He sought a position that is respectful while remaining clear eyed about exploitation risks and about well-intentioned practices that can undermine a participant’s interests, especially in hard cases where meaningful authorization is fragile. Drawing on the two coauthored papers in the issue and on colleagues’ recollections, the essay emphasizes Wasserman’s commitment to conceptual clarity, workable institutional design, and mentorship through collaboration. It closes by reflecting on his intellectual virtues, humor, and lasting influence on disability bioethics and research ethics.

This paper argues that research ethics for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities must attend to the value of non-domination. First, we highlight the role of domination in the history of abusive research practices against individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, practices which directly led to existing protections for this vulnerable population. Second, we argue that existing protections do not adequately safeguard potential participants from domination in decision-making about whether to participate. This is a distinct concern from the well-established criticisms that existing protections may wrongfully exclude potential participants. Finally, we outline and defend an account of supported decision-making grounded in the value of non-domination in order to safeguard potential participants from domination. Our account nonetheless preserves supported decision-making’s possibilities for greater inclusion of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in research participation.

In recent decades, theorists of disability rights have made the moral and legal case for supported decision-making. Whereas surrogate decision-making, the long upheld legal standard, looks to a third party to make a decision for a person deemed to lack the capacity to make that decision for themselves, support in decision-making empowers that person to make their own decisions. In this article, we argue for a significant shift in the norms governing enrollment in clinical trials. Rather than assume that support is only appropriate for individuals who cannot independently make sufficiently informed enrollment decisions, we propose “support in decision-making for all” when research protocols are beyond a certain risk threshold. Drawing inspiration from the universal design movement and feminist insights about autonomy, we argue that making support in decision-making the presumption has substantial expressive and practical benefits, and better empowers all potential research participants to make more informed, autonomous decisions.

In response to the article So You Think You Know Who’s the “Legally Authorized Representative”: Clinical Research Hits a Snag, this invited commentary draws attention to the practical realities that are overlooked in the paper’s examination of enrolling research participants without decisional capacity to provide their own consent. In such scenarios, the participant’s Legally Authorized Representative (LAR) is co-enrolled to consent on the participant’s behalf. Implementation of a research-based LAR is a two-part process that involves identifying the LAR according to legal hierarchy and performing a capacity assessment to determine whether the prospective participant requires an LAR. The paper makes several comparisons between standard care and research approaches to these decisions, most of which the author deems inadequate for clinical research contexts, and suggests that navigating this process may pose “unexpected legal and ethical hazards” for researchers. By offering a practitioner’s perspective in this commentary, I hope to bring clarity to this argument by explaining from direct experience how LAR implementation includes much greater collaboration and thought partnership between researchers and IRBs than the author gives credit for.

Against a backdrop of rapidly expanding health artificial intelligence (AI) development, this paper examines how the European Union’s (EU) stringent digital regulations may incentivise the outsourcing of personal health data collection to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), fuelling a new form of AI ethics dumping. Drawing on parallels with the historical offshoring of clinical trials, we argue that current EU instruments, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) and Medical Devices Regulation, impose robust internal safeguards but do not prevent the use of health data collected unethically beyond EU borders. This regulatory gap enables data colonialism, whereby commercial actors exploit weaker legal environments abroad without equitable benefit-sharing. Building on earlier EU responses to ethics dumping in clinical trials, we propose legal and policy pathways to prevent similar harms in the context of AI.

Anzac Day commemoration centers on the Anzac Legend, that volunteer Australian soldiers gave a sense of Australian nationhood a global presence. As such, it is considered an important institution in Australia. Largely absent, or at least uncomfortably present for some Australians, are the voices of aboriginal Australians. This exclusion needs to be fully understood if the Australian polity is to be considered an unrestrictive and representative democracy. This article considers a manner in which the un-covering of the means of exclusion of aboriginal voices from Anzac Day can be achieved. This depends on a radical democratization of research. The article discusses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and new materialism as methodological perspectives that fulfill this imperative. The article urges a democratic research process that considers how many disparate entities participate in a commemorative network in order to contribute to broader questions of exclusion, citizenship, identity, and recognition.

Existing approaches to quantitative epidemiologic methods commonly used in conflict and other emergency settings risk retraumatizing research participants. However, little guidance exists regarding how to mitigate these risks. Here we draw on literatures addressing ethical considerations in 2 similar activities—the use of qualitative research methodologies in research with survivors of violence and trauma, as well as witness protection strategies during tribunal proceedings. We recommend preliminary standards and best practices for participant protection from retraumatization associated with quantitative epidemiological methods adapted from existing practices for qualitative research and in tribunal contexts that should be refined in partnership with the affected communities.

It is well understood that safeguarding confidentiality is paramount to ensuring the success of research and the protection of participations. However, professional responsibilities and ethics of care can, at times, manifest in a requirement, or even a desire, to breach promises of confidentiality. We unpack this tension by drawing on research on the concepts of legal privilege, the right to report and the duty to report, the impacts of disclosures, as well as a study conducted with socio-legal and criminological researchers and criminalized or socially sanctioned communities who have participated in qualitative a research project. Our findings illustrate that while researchers with a clinical designation (e.g., nurses and social workers), enjoy clarity on professional duties, for researchers without such professional policies (e.g., criminologists) there is little guidance on when and how disclosures could and should take place. That said, when faced with the potential of actual and imminent threats of harm to an identifiable person, most researchers align with Supreme Court of Canada guidance, and would consider reporting, but with much deliberation regarding what constitutes harm, to whom one should report, and the consequences of disclosures. In the interests of contributing to this conversation, we conclude this paper with a decision-making framework that puts the Wigmore test into conversation with the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1999 Smith v Jones decision.

Unlike with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in clinical research, little has been said about the ethical principles that should regulate the use of RCTs in experimental development economics. One well-known principle in clinical research ethics is the principle of clinical equipoise. Some recent commentators suggest that an analogue of clinical equipoise should play a role in experimental development economics. In this article, I first highlight some difficulties with importing the concept to experimental development economics. I then argue that MacKay’s (2018, 2020) notion of policy equipoise avoids these difficulties and has a role to play in experimental development economics.

Research is a human enterprise, and for institutions to hold themselves accountable, people and structures must work in concert. Too many institutions limit their accountability to enforcing formal rules and regulations. This undermines their everyday functioning, institutional integrity, and public trust. In so doing, they fail to honor their own educational, research, and service missions. Institutional accountability for research integrity means going beyond enforcing regulations, teaching required responsible conduct of research courses, and responding to allegations of misconduct. It means recognizing and acting upon the knowledge that researchers’ interpersonal conduct is crucial for creating and sustaining productive and healthy work environments, and that work environments often dictate the norms and behaviors that create (or undermine) a strong culture of research integrity within an institution. Everyday actions of setting the tone, defining success, articulating values and expectations, and providing resources are crucial foundations of an institutional working culture that consistently values rigor, reproducibility, belonging, and integrity. Providing and normalizing engaging, relevant professional development programs is one way to be proactive about supporting all organizational members to be accountable for work cultures that buttress research integrity.