User blog comment:Captain Dashing/Is the Pirate's Code still in Effect?/@comment-3106883-20111015082609

In real life, pirate crews agreed on codes of conduct by mutual consent. They followed those codes because they were THEIR codes. A pirate who doesn't follow the code can't be trusted by other pirates and would be rejected and driven out of their society. In AWE, Sao Feng's initial betrayal to Beckett could have started the break up of Pirate society and thus their Code, but it didn't. The Code would survive as long as there were Pirates willing to follow it.