North Atlantic Treaty

North Atlantic Treaty

North Atlantic Treaty authentication page
Type	Military Alliance
Signed	4 April 1949
Location	Washington, D.C.
Effective	24 August 1949
Condition	Ratification by Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States and by a majority of the other signatory states.
Signatories	28 Albania Belgium Bulgaria Canada Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Turkey United Kingdom United States
Depositary	Government of the United States of America
Languages	French, English
North Atlantic Treaty at Wikisource

The North Atlantic Treaty is the treaty that brought NATO into existence, signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. The original twelve nations that signed it and thus became the founding members of NATO were:

Map of NATO countries chronological membership.

Belgium Canada Denmark France Iceland Italy

Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal United Kingdom United States

The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington by:

• Belgium
• Canada – Lester B Pearson and H. H. Wrong
• Denmark – Gustav Rasmussen and Henrik de Kauffmann
• France
• Iceland – Bjarni Benediktsson and Ólafur Thors
• Italy – Carlo Sforza
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• United Kingdom – Ernest Bevin and Oliver Franks, Baron Franks
• United States – Dean Acheson

Later the following nations joined:

Greece (1952) Turkey (1952) West Germany (1955) Spain (1982) Czech Republic (1999) Hungary (1999) Poland (1999) Bulgaria (2004)

Estonia (2004) Latvia (2004) Lithuania (2004) Romania (2004) Slovakia (2004) Slovenia (2004) Albania (2009) Croatia (2009)

When German reunification occurred in 1990, the country as a whole became a member of NATO.

During the April 2008 summit, Croatia and Albania were officially invited to join NATO. They both signed the treaty and officially joined NATO on 1 April 2009.

The key section of the treaty was Article V which committed each member state to consider an armed attack against one state to be an armed attack against all states. The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War. Rather, it was invoked for the first time in 2001 in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in Operation Eagle Assist.

In the United States, the treaty was approved by the US Senate in a vote of 82 to 13 on 21 July 1949.

See also

• NATO
• Warsaw Pact

External links

Official text