Chapter I: Purposes and Principles

Article 1:

 The purposes of the United Federation of Planets are:
  1. To maintain interplanetary peace and security within the treaty exploration territory, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention of threats to the peace, the suppression of acts of aggression, and to bring about by peaceful means, and employing the principles of justice and intra-galactic law, adjustment or settlement of interplanetary disputes which might lead to a breach of the peace;
  2. To develop friendly relations among planets based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of intelligent life-forms, and to other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
  3. To achieve interplanetary cooperation in solving intra-galactic problems of economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character; in promoting and encouraging respect for intelligent life-form rights; and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to culture, sex, life-form, or religious belief; and
  4. To be a center for concilience of the actions of all social systems in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2:

 The Federation and its members, in pursuit of the purposes stated, shall act in accordance with the following principles:
  1. The Federation is based on the sovereign equality of all its members;
  2. In order to ensure to all of them equal rights and benefits resulting from membership, all members shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with these articles of Federation;
  3. All members shall settle their interplanetary disputes by peaceful means in such manner that intra-galactic peace, security, and justice, are not endangered;
  4. In all interplanetary relations, all members shall refrain from the threat, or use, of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any planetary social system, or in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Federation;
  5. All members shall give the United Federation every assistance in any action taken in accordance with these articles of Federation, and shall refrain from assisting any planetary social system against which the Federation is taking preventive or enforcement action;
  6. The United Federation shall ensure that planetary social systems which are not members of the Federation act in accordance with these principles as necessary for the maintenance of intra-galactic peace and security;
  7. Nothing within these articles of Federation shall authorize the Federation to intervene in matters which are essentially the domestic jurisdiction of any planetary social system, or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement under these articles of Federation; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.