Terms and conditions – The World Today

We have a singular subscription offering which is as follows:

• 12-month subscription term (unless otherwise stated)
• Quarterly print publication (4 times a year) delivered to the customer’s address
• Online access to The World Today’s digital archive

There are 3 subscription pricing tiers:

1. Student: an individual actively enrolled in an educational institution
2. Individual: a private individual who is not a student
3. Institutional: an organisation or establishment

Customers must be able to prove, if requested by us, their status as belonging to any one of these 3 categories.

Some of these Terms are applicable only to Student and Individual subscribers. Where that is the case, we have clarified in the relevant paragraph.

Customers must be aged 18 years of age or over to purchase a subscription.

Customers with Individual and Student subscriptions may only have one online account with access to the digital archive. Customers with an Institutional subscription may have up to six (6) online accounts with access to the digital archive. For the avoidance of doubt, Institutional subscribers will receive one copy of each print publication

Geographical restrictions may apply to certain subscriptions. If applicable, this will be stated within the purchase journey. It is your responsibility to comply with any restrictions, and we will not be liable for failure to fulfil a subscription that is ordered contrary to such restrictions.

The subscription will be activated when we email you to accept your order, at which point a contract will come into existence between you and us on the terms set forth herein.

The first print issue that a new subscriber receives will be the issue that is published after the date your subscription is activated.

We reserve the right not to accept an order for any reason.

The costs of delivery (if applicable) will be as displayed to you on our website.

Any offers are valid for the specified region and by payment method advertised only.

If you have supplied a valid email address, and your order has been accepted, your order will be acknowledged via email with a confirmation of your start issue. We are not responsible if you (or the recipient) do not receive email correspondence or print publications as a result of providing the wrong email or postal address.

You are advised that if you do not create an account after signing up, or do not keep your account details up to date (e.g. email address), you may not be able to access the services and products you have purchased, and we can end our contract with you and stop providing the subscription.

If supply to you is delayed by an event outside our control, we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know and do what we can to reduce the delay. As long as we do this, we won’t be obliged to compensate you for the delay.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your username, password and other credentials (your “Credentials”) that you will be asked to create to access the subscription, its features, or portions thereof. We are not responsible for any misuse of your Credentials by any third party, whether authorized by you or not. You agree to immediately notify us of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your Credentials or any other breach of security. We are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage resulting from unauthorized use of your Credentials or for your failure to follow the requirements set out in these Terms.

It is your responsibility to ensure that we have your up to date contact details so we can let you know of any important updates regarding your subscription, and send print issues to you.  Update your contact details by logging in to your Chatham House account, navigating to your dashboard, and selecting ‘edit profile’.

Payment is taken in full at the beginning of the subscription and at any renewal.

We reserve the right to change the pricing of our subscriptions. If prices change, you will be notified of the new price via email when your subscription is due to renew, and your direct debit payment will be varied accordingly. If you do not agree to the price change, you can cancel your subscription as set out below.

For subscriptions obtained via a third party such as a subscription agency, your contract including, without limitation, the billing relationship will be directly with the applicable third party. We are not responsible for anything relating to your agreement with the third party.

If you are an Individual or Student subscriber, if you are signed up to auto-renew, your subscription contract will automatically renew at the end of each subscription term, at which point payment will be taken. You will be notified via email at least four weeks before the subscription is due to renew. You can cancel the auto-renewal at any time during the subscription term, but no later than two weeks before the end of a subscription term, by emailing us or, if you are an Individual or Student subscriber, by cancelling at the bank.

If you are an Individual or Student subscriber, you can cancel your subscription at any time. You must do this by sending a request to us by email.

If you are an Individual or Student subscriber, when your subscription commences, you have 14 days after the date when we confirm your order to change your mind and cancel the subscription and receive a refund. 

If you change your mind, you can inform us by emailing confirming that you wish to cancel the new subscription. If you have received a product with your subscription purchase (other than a print issue), or the product has already been dispatched, you forfeit your right to a refund until you have returned the Product to us, unopened and unused. 

Please note that when you cancel your subscription in the first 14 days of the start of your subscription, your access to our services will stop and you will be required to forfeit any subscription benefits that you have received, including sign-up offers, vouchers or any other benefits connected to your subscription. If you cancel after the first 14 days of the start of your subscription, payments are non-refundable and you will continue to receive the benefit of the subscription until the end of your billing period.

Refunds will be paid in pounds sterling by the method you used for payment, and The World Today will not be liable for any extra charges such as (without limitation) conversion or other bank fees.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Institutional subscribers will not receive reminder notifications relating to auto-renewal, and are not entitled to refunds upon termination of their subscription agreement for convenience.

We can change the offering (a) to reflect changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements; (b) to implement minor technical improvements and adjustments, for example to address a security threat and; (c) to update digital content provided that the description of the digital content always matches the description that we provided to you before you bought it. We might ask you to install these updates.

Failure to make updates that we notify you about may mean that you are unable to access our services and your subscription. We will not be responsible if you cannot access the services or your subscription because you have not installed a necessary update.

We may change subscription entitlements at any time with 30 days’ notice and affected subscribers may cancel their subscription within this notice period.

We can suspend the supply of the subscription to (a) deal with technical problems or make minor technical changes; (b) deal with circumstances outside our control; (c) protect the interests of third parties; (d) update the product to reflect changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements; or (e) make enhancements to the subscription. We will contact you in advance to tell you we’re suspending supply, unless the problem is urgent or an emergency.

We can end our contract with you and stop providing the subscription if (a) you don’t make any payment to us when it’s due and you still don’t make payment within 14 days of our reminding you that payment is due; (b) you don’t, within a reasonable time of us asking for it, provide us with information, cooperation or access that we need to provide the subscription, or (c) we believe that we have grounds to terminate (e.g. breach of these Terms).

Publication frequencies are subject to change, and we reserve the right to adjust these at any time. We’ll notify customers in advance of any changes and inform you, should this change your debit debt collection dates.

If there are issues processing your subscription, or if a print issue is returned as undelivered by the postal service, and provided that you have not entered an address in a restricted location, we will use reasonable endeavours to contact you to try resolve the issue. It is entirely at our discretion to send replacement copies for any reason of non-delivery.

The World Today will not be responsible for any customs charges or other taxes incurred by customers. 

We offer a free email newsletter which, as long as we have your email address, you will automatically be signed up to receive upon ordering a subscription. If you decide you no longer want to receive the free email newsletter, you can opt out at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the email. Opting out will not affect any of the terms and conditions of your subscription.

We will send customer service emails relating to the subscription, such as issue dispatch notifications. These will be sent regardless of marketing communication preferences. To ensure you receive these notifications please ensure that we have the correct email address by checking your account details. If a subscription is purchased as a gift for someone else, service emails will be sent to you, unless the gift recipient notifies us of their email address for receipt of these emails.

An initial payment for the number of months specified in the applicable offer will be taken and thereafter the subscription will continue at the renewal rate specified, unless you are notified otherwise.

Direct Debit subscriptions will automatically renew according to the specified payment schedule applicable to your subscription and can be cancelled anytime. Please note, only future subscription terms will be cancelled so be sure to contact us at least two weeks before your next payment is due.

Your personal data is processed in accordance with our Privacy Notice which can be found on our website.

Customers taking out a subscription via our website will be granted access to the digital archive as soon as their subscription is active and they have created a valid account.

Customers who take out a subscription via an agent must make a free account with Chatham House, and then send a request to us via email  for digital archive access.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs is the copyright holder or licensee of all content in The World Today including (without limitation) the website and print publication. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable licence to use the website and publication content solely for personal use. Except as expressly set out herein, neither you nor anyone acting on your behalf acquires any intellectual property rights relating to any of our content. Any rights not expressly granted within these Terms are reserved to us.

We respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users and subscribers to do the same. We may, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, terminate the access of users, subscribers, and account holders who infringe the copyright rights of us and/or third parties.

Whether you are an Individual, Student, or Institutional subscriber:

The subscription is provided “as is” and to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we expressly disclaim any and all warranties, express and implied, including but not limited to warranties of accuracy, reliability, title, merchantability, non-infringement, fitness for a particular purpose, or any other warranty, condition, guarantee or representation, whether oral, in writing or in electronic form, provided by us or within the content.

We and our affiliates make no warranty, implied or explicit, that any part of the sites will be uninterrupted, error-free, virus-free, timely, secure, accurate, reliable of any quality, nor that the content is safe in any manner for download. You understand and agree that neither we nor our affiliates nor any participant in the sites provides professional advice of any kind and that use of such advice or any other information is solely at your own risk and without our liability of any kind.

Save for the provisions of the following clause, we and our affiliates shall not be liable to you or any third parties for any direct, indirect, special, consequential or punitive damages allegedly sustained arising out of your access to or inability to access the sites, including for viruses alleged to have been obtained from the sites, your use of or reliance on the sites or any of the information or materials available on the sites or in the publication, regardless of the type of claim or the nature of the cause of action, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our liability will not be limited in the case of death or personal injury directly caused by our negligence, or fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

These Terms do not and shall not affect any of your rights that are implied by law and that cannot be excluded including but not limited to (in the case of Individual and Student subscribers) that the goods will be of satisfactory quality and as described.

You agree to indemnify us and our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, employees, advertisers, partners, agents and representatives, and to hold us and them harmless from any and all claims, demands, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses (including legal fees) that may arise from: (i) your submissions, contribution(s) or provision of content; (ii) your use or misuse of the site; (iii) your unauthorised use of material obtained through the sites or your subscription; (iv) your breach of these Terms; (v) any such acts arising through your use of the sites; or (vi) any other violation of the rights of another person or party. In the case of institutional subscribers, “you” and “your” shall anyone who accesses the subscriptions under each of the accounts within your subscription.

This contract is between you and us. Nobody else has any rights under the contract and nobody else can enforce it and neither of us will need to ask anybody else to sign-off on ending or changing it.

If a court invalidates some of this contract, the rest of it will still apply. If a court or other authority decides that some of these terms are unlawful, the rest will continue to apply.

A delay or failure to exercise, or partial exercise of, any right or remedy under this contract, does not waive that or any other right or remedy, nor prevent or restrict the further exercise of that or any other right or remedy.

These terms are governed by the laws of England and both you and we submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.

If you are an Institutional subscriber:

In the event of inconsistency between the paragraphs below and the rest of these Terms, the paragraph(s) below shall take precedence to the extent of the inconsistency.

We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with: (i) your use of, or inability to use, our site or your subscription; or (ii) use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site or in our publication.

All warranties, representations, conditions and all other terms of any kind whatsoever implied by statute or common law are, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, excluded from these Terms.

We will have no liability to you for any loss of profits, loss of sales, loss of business, loss of revenue, wasted expenditure, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, loss or corruption of data or information, loss or depletion of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or any special, indirect or consequential loss, costs, charges, expenses or damages.

Our total aggregate liability to you in respect of any and all breaches of duty occurring pursuant to these Terms shall not exceed the total subscription fees paid in the contract year in which the breach occurred. A contract year means a 12-month period commencing on the activation date of the subscription, or any anniversary of it. References to liability in this clause include every kind of liability arising under or in connection with this agreement including but not limited to liability in tort (including negligence), contract, misrepresentation, restitution or otherwise.

Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.