Worldwide Regulation of Co-Operative Societies - An Overview

A short survey of such a vast subject matter cannot be complete. It remains a reasoned but arbitrary collection of ideas, data, facts and figures, biased by the personal experience of the author and his access to sources, inevitably leaving gaps. In the first part of the paper, the “co-operative society” as a legal pattern is defined and distinguished from other legal forms. In the second part, an overview is given of the different concepts of co-operatives, varying considerably from one country to another and even within countries. The main part of this paper deals with describing legal patterns of co-operative societies from different perspectives: (a) by origin, (b) by type of co-operative and (c) by continent. A special chapter is dedicated to innovations, e. g. appropriate legal technology, trends to develop supra-national ooperative law and in new fields: multi-stakeholder co-operatives and social cooperatives as part of Social Economy. Conclusions are drawn regarding international guidelines for good co-operative legislation around a common core – the Statement of Co-operative Identity of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) – as contained in the UN Guidelines of 2001 aimed at creating a supportive environment for the development of co-operatives and the International labour Organization (ILO) Recommendation 193 of 2002 for the promotion of co-operatives. A review of past experience highlights the critical points identified as benchmarks, obstacles and trends of the future work of law-makers dealing with co-operative legislation