Chatham House Rule

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The Chatham House Rule regulates the transfer of the content of confidential conversations to third parties; it comes from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, also known as " Chatham House ".

background

The Chatham House Rule serves the anonymity of the speaking participants. If conversations or conferences take place under this rule, the participants may pass on the content, but it is forbidden to reveal the identity of conference participants, speakers or interlocutors. The Chatham House Rule is mostly used when confidential information is used or when it would not be opportune for a participant to be associated with a certain train of thought for (political) reasons.

“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker (s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed . ”

“At events (or parts of events) that fall under the Chatham House Rule, participants are permitted to freely use the information received on condition that neither the identity nor the affiliation of speakers or other participants may be revealed. "

The rule was introduced in order to be able to express one's opinion without possible consequences for oneself or one's own company. Furthermore, one should be released from any responsibility for what has been said. This is also intended to avoid the problem of a possibly fuzzy separation between the expression of opinion as a person and the expression of opinion as an official.

In the parlance of German political journalism, the Chatham House Rule corresponds approximately to an expression “ Unter Zwei” (= quotable without citing the source); Since, according to the Chatham House Rule, the speaker's affiliation to a group (usually the participants in the respective meeting) may not be disclosed, this confidentiality rule lies between "under two" and "under three" (= confidential background information).

The principle was first established in 1927 in Chatham House, the seat of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Chatham House Rule translations. Chatham House, accessed July 31, 2020.