Atlantic Charter after 80 years

What is Atlantic Charter?

• The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration issued during World War II (1939-45) by the United States and Great Britain that set out a vision for the postwar world. It was announced on August 14, 1941.
• Among its major points were a nation’s right to choose its own government, the easing of trade restrictions and a plea for postwar disarmament.
• The document is considered one of the first key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.

The Atlantic Charter included 8 common principles:

• Among them, the United States and Britain agreed not to seek territorial gains from the war, and they opposed any territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned.
• The two countries also agreed to support the restoration of self-government to those nations who had lost it during the war.
• Additionally, the Atlantic Charter stated that people should have the right to choose their own form of government.
• Other principles included access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity and an easing of trade restrictions.
• The document also called for international cooperation to secure improved living and working conditions for all; freedom of the seas; and for all countries to abandon the use of force.

US – UK signed Atlantic Charter

• President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain signed a new version of the 80-year-old “Atlantic Charter”, using their first meeting to redefine the Western alliance and accentuate what they said was a growing divide between battered democracies and their autocratic rivals, led by Russia and China.
• The two leaders unveiled the new charter as they sought to focus the world’s attention on emerging threats from cyberattacks, the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended the global economy, and climate change, using language about reinforcing NATO and international institutions that Biden hoped would make clear that the Trump era of America First was over.
• But the two men also continued to grapple with old-world challenges, including Biden’s private admonishment of the prime minister against taking actions that could inflame sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
• The new charter, a 604-word declaration, was an effort to stake out a grand vision for global relationships in the 21st century, just as the original, first drafted by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a declaration of a Western commitment to democracy and territorial integrity just months before the United States entered World War II.
• In a direct rebuke of Russia and China, the new agreement calls on Western allies to “oppose interference through disinformation or other malign influences, including in elections.”
• It ranks the threats to democratic nations in a technological era: “We affirm our shared responsibility for maintaining our collective security and international stability and resilience against the full spectrum of modern threats, including cyber threats.”
• And it vows that “as long as there are nuclear weapons, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance. Our NATO Allies and partners will always be able to count on us, even as they continue to strengthen their own national forces.”
• The new charter explicitly calls for both countries to adhere to “the rules-based international order,” a phrase that Trump and his aides sought, unsuccessfully, to banish from previous statements by Western leaders, convinced that it represented a globalist threat to Trump’s America First agenda at home.
• Public health experts applauded Biden’s announcement. If earlier donations had been little more than Band-Aids on an enormous global vaccine deficit, the 500 million doses were more in keeping with the scale of the challenge, they said.
• Negotiations over the arrangements, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, have grown increasingly contentious, with Britain threatening to pull the plug on the deal unless Brussels makes concessions.