Expert evidence on political classification
Proceedings that turn on what a political organisation actually is — asylum and country guidance, extradition, proscription challenges, defamation — usually turn on a characterisation nobody has had to justify systematically.
The problem with most available evidence
Country experts are slow to instruct and often unavailable at short notice. Many are regional specialists with visible political commitments, which opposing counsel will find. And most reports assert a characterisation rather than deriving one, which leaves the methodology undefended at exactly the moment it is attacked.
What is different here
The method predates the instruction
The codebook, its anchor definitions and the evidence standard were published, dated and version-controlled on a public website before your case existed. It was not built to reach your conclusion and can be shown not to have been.
The limits are structural
Confidence ratings and contested flags are part of the instrument, not concessions made under pressure. An expert who has already published what the instrument cannot do is harder to dismantle than one who concedes it in the box.
The instrument reports against itself
The public audit includes tests that weaken it: two axes correlating at 0.86, and a demonstration that dropping any single axis leaves the model largely intact. This is the strongest available answer to the suggestion that the analysis was engineered.
A public revision log
Thirty scores have been changed on evidence, each with the reason recorded publicly. Demonstrable good faith, on the record, before instruction.
The limit of what is offered
The atlas classifies political position. It does not opine on legal findings — whether conduct amounts to persecution, whether an organisation meets a statutory terrorism definition, whether a situation constitutes apartheid. Those are matters for the tribunal on the evidence. Instructions are accepted on that basis and the limitation appears in the report itself.
Commissions
Preliminary Opinion
A short pre-instruction assessment for counsel. Before commissioning a full expert report, this establishes whether a six-axis analysis supports the position you need, how strongly, and where it would be vulnerable under cross-examination.
Expert Report
A written expert report on the political character of a named organisation, prepared for use in proceedings. The methodology annex sets out a codebook that was published and dated before the instruction existed, which is the point.
Conference with counsel and attendance at hearing are available at a day rate, quoted on instruction. Please confirm the procedural requirements of your jurisdiction for expert declarations at the point of instruction.
Uncertain whether the evidence assists? A Preliminary Opinion establishes that in five working days for $795, before you commit to a full report.
Preliminary Opinion