About the OAS

• Who We Are
  • Our Purpose
  • Principles
  • Member States
• What We Do
• Our Structure
  • General Assembly
  • Meetings of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs
  • Councils
  • Inter-American Juridical Committee
  • Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
  • General Secretariat
  • Specialized Conferences
  • Specialized Organizations
• Our Locations
• Offices in Member States
• Our History
• Logo
• Authorities

Purpose

Article 2 of the Charter of the OAS states that:

"The Organization of American States, in order to put into practice the principles on which it is founded and to fulfill its regional obligations under the Charter of the United Nations, proclaims the following essential purposes:

1. To strengthen the peace and security of the continent;

2. To promote and consolidate representative democracy, with due respect for the principle of nonintervention;

3. To prevent possible causes of difficulties and to ensure the pacific settlement of disputes that may arise among the Member States;

4. To provide for common action on the part of those States in the event of aggression;

5. To seek the solution of political, juridical, and economic problems that may arise among them;

6. To promote, by cooperative action, their economic, social, and cultural development;

7. To eradicate extreme poverty, which constitutes an obstacle to the full democratic development of the peoples of the hemisphere; and

8. To achieve an effective limitation of conventional weapons that will make it possible to devote the largest amount of resources to the economic and social development of the Member States."