The ICA Cooperative Law Committee was set up in 2019 to provide independent advice to the ICA. The committee is composed of legal experts from multiple jurisdictions who are well versed in cooperatives.
Along with facilitating the reconstitution of the ICA Cooperative Law Committee, the ICA has, since 2017, coordinated review and reports on as many as 60 national pieces of legislation through research undertaken by the ICA-EU Partnership on Cooperatives in Development in collaboration with regional offices. The reports, which also measure how supportive of cooperatives national legislation is, can be accessed here.
In their advocacy towards favorable and conducive legislation, cooperatives are expected to protect the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity, which secures the cooperative and ethical values along with the seven operational principles of cooperatives and the all-encompassing international definition of cooperatives.
The Statement also promotes a harmonious understanding of cooperatives and application of the corresponding enterprise model, internationally, and is expected to be safeguarded by legislation and State policy. Efforts continue towards bringing cooperative legislation in tandem with this Statement around the world – to help cooperatives, their members and their communities benefit from the ‘cooperative difference’.
The 2002 Promotion of Cooperatives Recommendation (No. 193) of the ILO and the 2001 United Nations Guidelines, which aimed to create a supportive environment for the development of cooperatives, recognise the importance of the Identity Statement in developing and promoting cooperatives in all countries, unlike the previous ILO Recommendation 127 of 1966, which focused on the governments of so-called developing states. The fact that many cooperative laws across the world incorporate the cooperative principles proved the importance of these international instruments.
Cooperatives continue to advocate for a conducive legal and policy environment. These efforts have led to favorable recent changes in several parts of the world, including the largely harmonised Framework Act on Cooperatives in the Republic of Korea, which will be the host of the next ICA World Cooperative Congress in 2021. The introduction of this Act in 2012 has led to the proliferation of cooperatives in several new enterprise sectors and has furthered the relevance of cooperatives, especially among the youth, who are now establishing freelancers’ cooperatives, among other forms that were not possible before 2012.
The link between the cooperative identity and cooperative law will be further explored at the Third International Forum on Cooperative Law in Seoul, the Republic of Korea on 28-30 November 2021.
For more information about the event, which is organised by the ICA in collaboration with Ius Cooperativum, contact legislation@ica.coop.
Right from the very beginning, co-operative law was an important topic for cooperators. It was one of the main themes at the third ICA Congress in 1897 in Delft (Holland), which passed a resolution urging governments to not obstruct the cooperative way and assist them by disseminating knowledge of various forms of association and passing suitable and supportive legislation.
In 1904, during the Sixth Congress in Budapest, Hungary, the ICA moved its first ever resolution on legislation and on cooperation in less developed countries, indicating that it was becoming an important part in the ICA’s policy-making process. Another major ICA resolution on cooperative legislation was passed at the 24th Congress in Hamburg, Germany, in 1969.
Meanwhile, with the creation of the ILO’s Cooperatives Unit in 1920, cooperative law gained an international dimension. During the Tenth Cooperative Congress in 1921 in Basel (Switzerland), the first Director General of the ILO, Albert Thomas, presented a paper on the Policy of International Cooperation and had reported on the concerns of the League of Nations on the post war problems including food distribution. He also argued that cooperatives should oppose all wars in all forms, including trade wars, and denounced competition if it weakened association between all nations.
-ICA Release