Rapporteur is used in international and European legal and political contexts to refer to a person appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue or a situation.

For example, Dick Marty

Dick Marty

Dick Marty is a Swiss politician and former state prosecutor of the canton of Ticino. He is a member of the Swiss Council of States , and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.-Education:Marty holds a doctorate in law from the University of Neuchâtel with the thesis:...

 was appointed rapporteur by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...

 to investigate extraordinary rendition

Extraordinary rendition

Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...

 by the CIA.

Authors of reports prepared by committees of the European Parliament

Standing Committees of the European Parliament

The Committees of the European Parliament are designed to aid the European Commission in initiating legislation.Standing Committees are made up of Members of the European Parliament , who are directly elected to the seats in the European Parliament by the electorate. Each Committee has a Chairman...

 are also known as "rapporteurs". People assisting or helping the rapporteur are called shadow rapporteur

Shadow rapporteur

Authors of reports assisting the rapporteur in preparation of committees of the European Parliament are known as shadow rapporteurs. Those persons involved may vary in numbers depending on the issue....

and may vary in number depending on the issue.