Leadership Letter
November 2021
ASK COUNSELOR TARA
ASCE’s General Counsel Tara Hoke responds to legal questions posed by Sections and Branches here each month. Send Tara an email with your question.
What is the Chatham House Rule of parliamentary procedure?
Have you ever received notice of a forum being conducted under the Chatham House Rule? Or been in a meeting where a member asks to hold a discussion under the Chatham House Rule? If so, you may have found yourself thinking “Where is Chatham House, and how does its Rule have anything to do with our event?”
As with most rules of parliamentary procedure, the Chatham House Rule had its origin in the United Kingdom—specifically, in the UK’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, which for almost a hundred years has been headquartered in a building known as Chatham House. It is said that the Chatham House Rule originated in the late 1920s as a way to ensure open and candid discussion on politically sensitive or controversial matters.
Intended to represent a middle ground between full transparency and full confidentiality, the primary requirement of the Chatham House Rule is non-attribution. Participants who agree to conduct a meeting under the Chatham House Rule can freely share the contents of a discussion outside the meeting, but they are not permitted to disclose the source of any particular piece of information, observation, of opinion. In some circumstances, the Chatham House Rule could be applied even to restrict information about the names or affiliations of all those in attendance at a particular event, regardless of whether these individuals participated in the actual discussion.
While the Chatham House Rule may seem to conflict with the general best practices of transparency and accountability in a board or committee’s decision-making process, the Rule may be useful in cases where a discussion veers into topics that might entail a personal cost for participants. For example, if a group was discussing an issue known to be unpopular with a particular member’s employer or client, that member might be inclined to self-censor or to “toe the company line” in order to prevent word of the member’s opinion from reaching unwelcoming ears. Conversely, an agreement to hold the meeting under the Chatham House Rule might free the member to express his/her honest views without fear of future repercussions.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Chatham House Rule is only as useful as the willingness of participants to honor it. Whenever you decide to hold a discussion under this Rule, or with any other restriction on the time or content of permitted disclosures, it is essential to make sure that all participants understand the nature of the restrictions and agree to abide by them.