The International Forums on Cooperative Law bring together lawyers with an interest in international, regional and national cooperative laws. It is a platform for sharing experiences on diverse cooperative law issues. The Forum is mainly organized by Ius Cooperativum in collaboration with the International Cooperative Alliance Cooperative Law Committee (ICA-CLC). Four Forums have been organized so far since 2016. Ius Cooperativum will hold the 5th Forum November 13 and 14, 2025 jointly with the ICA-CLC and the Moshi Co-operative University (MoCU). Returning to the original idea of holding the Forum bi-annually and alternately in one of the regions of the ICA, this Forum will take place in Africa, and will be hosted in Moshi, Kilimanjaro within the United Republic of Tanzania.
The 5th Forum is part of the events marking the 2nd International Year of Cooperatives within 13 years that the United Nations General Assembly declared in 2024 (UN Doc. A/RES/78/289). The 5th Forum will explore the relationship between cooperative law and sustainable development from a juridical perspective. Related ideas, such as ‘cooperatives and development’ and ‘cooperatives and sustainable development’, as well as concepts, such as ‘cooperative law and development’, ‘law and sustainable development’ and especially the encompassing concept of ‘law and development’, have evolved throughout the history of modern cooperatives with varying intensity and weight and have received considerable attention. However, ‘cooperative law and sustainable development’ has hardly been dealt with yet.
The importance of other perspectives, especially the political, social and economic ones is not denied, but a narrower juridical approach may be justified by the following: The substance of cooperative law is now being guided by cooperative principles that are recognized by public international law and sustainable development is gradually permeating all law as a concept recognized by public international law. Despite the radical change that ‘sustainable development’ implies for the notion of development, the reflection on the subject of ‘Cooperative Law and Sustainable Development’ might benefit from embedding it in the ‘law and development’ discussion. Not only “[is] ‘law and development’ […] back” (Kennedy, Laws and developments, in: Hatchard/Perry-Kessaris (eds.), Law and Development: Facing Complexity in the 21st Century, 2003, 17 ff.), but the realities behind the concepts it encompasses subsist and lessons may be drawn from them and from their theorization for the theme of the Forum. Noticeably, the literature on cooperative law and on ‘law and development’ have not taken much notice of each other.
The theme of the Forum is multi-faceted. Its description operates with acceptations and connotations that have varied over time and in space and are still contested. Because of the narrow juridical approach, the result of the Forum cannot be more than an approximation to the subject. While this may justify a fundamental criticism the organizers nevertheless hope that the Forum will reveal the untapped potential of cooperative law for everyone who is working towards a world that embraces sustainable development.
A detailed background paper may be found at the end of this post: www.iuscooperativum.org
Contributions
Anyone interested in participating in the 5th International Forum on Cooperative Law, in person or virtually, is kindly invited to submit an abstract on one of the following subjects, or on any subject that relates to the overall theme of the Forum and deals with cooperative law, the legal nature of the cooperative principles, development and/or the legal principle/concept of sustainable development. The following are suggested topics and are not intended to be exhaustive:
- Cooperative law and development – lessons from the past
– The first cooperative laws and development
– The so-called British Indian Pattern of Cooperation and development
– The influence of the so-called British Indian Pattern of Cooperation on cooperative law beyond India, then and now
– Cooperative law and the development paths of China, Japan and Korea
– Cooperative law, “home-grown” or “imported”?
o The encounter of a universal idea with local realities
o The ‘weal and woe’ of colonial and post-colonial experiences in cooperative law-making.
o ‘Exporting” and ‘importing’ foreign cooperative law
o Cooperative law and laws related to (dis)similar entities, such as, for example Ujamaa in Tanzania, fokon-olona and fokon-tany in Madagascar or tontines in Cameroun
– Cooperative law, ILO Recommendation 127 and development
– Cooperative law and the debate on ‘law and development’
– Cooperative law mirrored against the various notions of development – economic and others. For example, evolution’, ‘progress’, ‘growth’, ‘degrowth’, ‘financial performance’, ‘human development’
– Cooperative law and development – of society, the state and/or the individual? - Cooperative law and development – where do we stand?
- The legal nature of the cooperative principles
- Cooperative law, regional and national, development and the cooperative principles, considered individually or in their interrelatedness
- Cooperative model laws and new thoughts on cooperative principles
- The influence of the ICA Statement and/or the ILO R. 193 on cooperative law reforms and development
- Cooperatives, national constitutions and the legal principle of sustainable development
- Cooperative law, regional and national, and the legal principle of sustainable development
- Cooperative law and the legal principle of sustainable development. Is there anything special about cooperatives as compared to other enterprise types?
- Cooperative law and the legal principle of sustainable development versus the SDGs
- Cooperative law and the Corporate social and societal responsibility versus Cooperative social and societal responsibility
3. Cooperative law and development – views toward the future
- Cooperative law, laws on social cooperatives, the social and/or solidarity economy laws and the legal principle of sustainable development
- Cooperative law, the cooperative principles and the principle of sustainable development
- Cooperative law, structural changes of enterprises and development: Data, data transferability, platforms
- Cooperative law, new types of cooperatives, the cooperative principles and the principle of sustainable development
- Cooperative law, value chains and development
- Cooperative law. Regulating collectives and/or regulating connectives?
- Cooperative law and decentralized autonomous organizations
- Cooperative law. From organized cooperatives to networks/platforms and from organized cooperative solidarity to cooperative institutionalized solidarity
- The notion of law in cooperative law and development: privative, relational, non-state, and/or oral law, blockchains, algorithms
- Cooperative law in research and teaching
Abstract submission and acceptance
Abstracts in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese may be sent no later than June 10, 2025, to
[email protected]
The organizers will inform potential contributors by June 30, 2025, on whether their abstract has been accepted.
Presentations will have to be in English or French.
Organizing team:
• Alphonce Mbuya
• David Hiez
• Hagen Henrÿ
• Ifigeneia Douvitsa
• Itziar Villafañez
• Leonardo de Souza
• Mathias Nkuhi
• Santosh Kumar
Scientific committee
• Akira Kurimoto, Ann Apps (Asia Pacific)
• Akram Belhadj Rhouma (North Africa, Middle East)
• Alphonce Mbuya and Mathias Nkuhi and Willy Tadjudje (Africa).
• Dante Cracogna and Leonardo de Souza (Americas)
• David Hiez, Cynthia Ciagnocavo, Ifigeneia Douvitsa, Dominik Bierecki, Itziar Villafañez (Europe)
Follow up
Outstanding contributions to the 5th International Forum on Cooperative Law might be accepted for publication in the International Journal of Cooperative Law and/or in a book.
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