Background
This series of conferences was started by George J. Agich and Stella Reiter-Theil to fill the significant gap that they perceived in the field between the explosion of clinical ethics, ethics committees, and ethics consultation services around the world and the relative lack of critical and academic discussion of the many practical, institutional, and ethical issues associated with this work. 

Each conference is organized by a local host, who oversees local arrangements. An international program committee oversees the development of the program, including setting the program theme and overseeing reviews of abstracts.