Chatham House Rule

The Chatham House Rule ( to German: Chatham House Rule ) comes from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, also known as " Chatham House ".

"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 did any of other participant, 'may be revealed. "

"If a conference or a part thereof is held under the Chatham House Rule, the Participants are free to use the information received, but they may reveal neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker or that of any other participant. "

The rule is the anonymity of interlocutors. If conversations or meetings held under this rule, the participants may indeed pass on the content, but it is forbidden to disclose the identities of conference participants, speakers or interlocutors. Strictly speaking, may not even be worn on the outside, that one has attained information on this conference. The Chatham House Rule is usually employed when the confidential information is used, or if it would not be opportune from (political) reasons for a participant to be associated with a particular line of thought.

This rule was introduced in order to really allow free discussion in order to express his opinion without any consequences for oneself or one's own enterprise. Furthermore, one should be exempted from any responsibility for what is said. Also should therefore be avoided as a minister of the problem of a possibly blurred separation between the expression as a person and of expression.

In the parlance of the German political journalism the Chatham House Rule of an utterance " under two " corresponds approximately to ( = quotable without Quellanangabe ); since, according to Chatham House Rule but also the affiliation of the speaker to a group (usually just the participants of each meeting ) must not be divulged, this confidentiality rule is strictly between " sub- two " and " three " ( = confidential background information).

The principle was put up for the first time in 1927 at Chatham House, the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.