The Eight
Points of the Atlantic Charter
August 14, 1941
The President of the United States of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Prime
Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom,
being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national
policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future
for the world.
- First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
- Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely
expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
- Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under
which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored
to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
- Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further
the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal
terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their
economic prosperity;
- Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the
economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic
advancement and social security. [319]
- Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a
peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own
boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out
their lives in freedom from fear and want;
- Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without
hindrance;
- Eighth, they believe that all the nations of the world, for realistic as well as
spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace
can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which
threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending
the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the
disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other
practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of
armaments.
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