The PEN Charter is based on resolutions passed at its International Congresses and may be summarized as follows:
PEN affirms that:
1 Literature knows no frontiers and must remain common currency among people in spite of political or international upheavals.
2 In all circumstances, and particularly in time of war, works of art, the patrimony of humanity at large, should be left untouched by national or political passion.
3 Members of PEN should at all times use what influence they have in favour of good understanding and mutual respect between nations; they pledge themselves to do their utmost to dispel race, class and national hatreds, and to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace in one world.
4 PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within
each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose
any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community
to which they belong, as well as throughout the world wherever this is possible.
PEN declares for a free press and opposes arbitrary censorship in time of
peace. It believes that the necessary advance of the world towards a more
highly organized political and economic order renders a free criticism of
governments, administrations and institutions imperative. And since freedom
implies voluntary restraint, members pledge themselves to oppose such evils
of a free press as mendacious publication, deliberate falsehood and distortion
of facts for political and personal ends.
Charter