One of the challenges of medical practice is to resolve the conflicts that arise when a professional is required to choose between competing ethical principles. This is especially true in psychiatry. The answers to ethical issues are not necessarily right or wrong. Ethics in psychiatry is complex, and numerous dilemmas may confuse the picture. Clinicians and researchers bring their own values to the scenario, but they must also deal with the values of their colleagues and their patients, as well as those of the wider (multicultural) community. These conflicts traditionally concern confidentiality, informed consent, involuntary hospitalisation, the right to treatment, the right to refuse treatment and the regulation of psychiatric research, among others. These are universally encountered but present differently across the regions of the world.