14 August 1941: The UK Prime Minister and the American President sign the Atlantic Charter

CWA # 1453

This Week in History

14 August 1941: The UK Prime Minister and the American President sign the Atlantic Charter

Pummy Lathigara
23 August 2024

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On 14 August 1941, during World War II, following the four-day Atlantic Conference, the British Prime Minister and the American President issued a joint declaration called ‘Atlantic Charter.’ The document enunciated a vision of the post-war democratic, liberal world order and it served as an inspiration for the several future agreements to ensure peace, security and free trade.

Towards the Charter
The Charter emerged in a desperate context of the Second World War. As the Nazi Germany swiftly overran Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and France till 1940, Great Britain was left without any allies to counter the influence of Hitler on the continent. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg tactics and the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 left the Great Britain inefficient against the Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, in the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for his third term, upheld the “isolationist policy”, according to which he promised to his countrymen that the Americans would not entangle themselves in the “European War.”

In the fall of 1940, as the Great Britain was in financial distress, PM Winston Churchill wrote a letter to the US President Roosevelt, pleading for American assistance as the fall of the UK to the Nazi Germany would not be in the interest of the USA. In March 1941, Roosevelt responded with his ‘Lend-Lease Proposal’, according to which, as an arsenal of Democracy, United States assured material assistance to the Great Britain. By May 1941, the German forces had caused humiliating defeats on the British, Greek and Yugoslav forces in the Balkans and were threatening to seize Egypt, thereby blocking British access to the Suez Canal. It would result in Great Britain losing contact with India. Meanwhile, Britain was also mindful about the possibility that the Japanese forces, taking advantage of the situation might seize the British, French and Dutch territories in Southeast Asia. One of the closest aides of President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins was of the opinion that the nation must provide more assistance to the Great Britain rather than just material assistance. Hence, he persuaded Roosevelt and Churchill for a meeting, which led to the Atlantic Conference in August 1941, held in utmost secrecy, as Churchill passed through the waters where German U-boats patrolled.

The Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Conference was held aboard naval ships in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada. The leaders met during 9-12 August 1941 to discuss their war policies for the Second World War and outline an international system. This was for the first time that the leaders were meeting as their respective heads of governments. The ‘Atlantic Charter’ was a joint statement by Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of UK and Franklin D Roosevelt, the US President as an outcome of the Atlantic Conference. The charter they drafted included eight common principles to guide the policies of both the nations during the war. Those principles and values laid the foundation of the post-war world order.

First principle was that both the countries agreed to no aggrandizement, of territorial or of any other form. Second, they desired no territorial changes which were against the freely expressed wishes of the people of the territories concerned. Third, they upheld the value of self-determination of all the peoples to choose the form of government. It upheld the sovereign rights and right to self-government of those who had been forcibly deprived of the same. Fourth, they would ensure to all the states, great or small, victor or vanquished, equal access to trade and raw materials. Fifth, they would ensure fullest economic collaboration between all the nations to secure social security, economic prosperity and improved labour conditions.

The sixth clause articulated the principle of security. The nations hoped to establish peace after the final destruction of Nazi Germany, which would afford to all the nations safety within their boundaries and assurance to humanity of the freedom from fear and want. Seventh, they agreed to the freedom of the seas. Eighth, they emphasised on disarmament and establishment of a permanent system of general security. The core of the principles was Franklin Roosevelt’s Wilsonian vision of the post-war world. At the centre of these principles was the idea of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms- the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from wants and the freedom from fear.

However, the meeting failed to produce the desired results for either of the leaders. Churchill’s primary goal was American intervention in the war or to increase the American military aid to Great Britain. However, Roosevelt maintained the neutral stance of US in the war as the public opinion opposed American entanglement into the war, until the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbour in December 1941. Churchill was also alarmed by the third point of the Charter which ensured right of self-government to people, which was against the Imperialist policies of Great Britain in its colonies. However, the Charter ensured closer ties between Great Britain and USA, even as US remained neutral.

After the Charter
Although the Charter was not a binding treaty, it was significant for several reasons, as it laid the foundation of several post-war agreements and institutions. Firstly, the Charter served as an inspiration for the third world countries as they fought for independence, which led to decolonisation and dismantling of the British Empire. Second, it formally affirmed the British-American solidarity against the aggression of the Axis Powers.

Third, it influenced the establishment of several institutions to ensure collective security. The sixth clause of the Charter led to the creation of the United Nations system as twenty-six countries signed the Declaration by United Nations in January 1942. The seventh clause was legalised in the form of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). The fourth clause of the Charter laid the foundation of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) to ensure equal opportunity to trade. The eighth clause of the charter to ensure ‘general security’ led to the formation of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. The charter can be identified as a blueprint for multilateral institutional framework, which led to the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the European Union and the Climate Change framework.

Although the Atlantic Charter had little legalistic validity, its affirmation of cooperation highlighted a new hope and faith in peace during wartime. In the words of historian Elizabeth Borgwardt, the Atlantic Charter “prefigured the rule-of-law orientation of the Nuremberg Charter, the collective security of the United Nations Charter, and even the free-trade ideology of the Bretton Woods system.”

About the author
Pummy Lathigara is a postgraduate student of Politics and International Relations at the Department of Social Sciences, Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gujarat.

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