The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), through its Financial Framework Partnership with the EU, will convene the hybrid Workshop, “Framing the Principles of International Cooperative Law,” on 22–23 August 2026 at Juraj Dobrila University in Pula, Croatia.
Open to online participants, the one-and-a-half-day workshop will form part of a wider sequence of activities devoted to the cooperative identity and its translation into law, public policy and cooperative practice. It will be preceded by a (invite-only) meeting of the ICA Cooperative Identity Advisory Group (CIAG) and followed by the Third ICA–Saint Mary’s University International Summer School on Cooperative Law, taking place from 24 to 28 August (register if you still can).
The workshop will bring together cooperative legal experts, practitioners, researchers and policymakers to debate the theory and normative foundations of the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity. It will consider how the Statement—and the cooperative principles it contains—can be consistently interpreted, implemented and safeguarded through cooperative law, public policy and institutional practice.
Discussions will be structured around selected questions identified as “matters for future consideration” in the ICA Guidance Notes on the Cooperative Principles. Tentative subjects include:
- openness in membership and its relationship with non-discrimination under Principle 1;
- the taxation of cooperatives and the accounting treatment of indivisible reserves under Principle 3; and
- the implications of admitting non-user and investor members for cooperative autonomy and independence under Principle 4.
The programme will also explore sustainable development and peace; cooperative acts (actos cooperativos - see footnote) and the cooperative basis; education, training and information; and the institutional arrangements required to support the coherent interpretation and implementation of the cooperative normative corpus.
Expert panels will include a thematic discussion on cooperative identity in the housing sector and a dedicated session on the emerging principles of international cooperative law. The latter will draw upon the Principles of European Cooperative Law, the Framework Law for Cooperatives in Latin America, the African Union Model Law on Cooperatives and ongoing cooperative-law reforms in Pacific Island countries.
The workshop forms part of the preparatory work for the ICA’s international comparative analysis of cooperative law, scheduled for publication in 2028. Its conclusions will also inform the Cooperative Identity Lab at the ICA Global Conference in Panama City on 16 September 2026 and the International Symposium on Cooperative Law on 17 September 2026 that share thier overall objectives with the workshop in Pula.
The workshop will be held in hybrid format and is open to online participants. English–Spanish interpretation will be available during selected parts of the programme only.
Interested participants are invited to register by 18 August 2026.
Register to participate online
Footnote
Cooperative Act (Actos Cooperativos) fro example, acc. to the Law No. 18407 of Uruguay (Ley N.º 18.407, Ley de Cooperativas: regulación, constitución, organización y funcionamiento.) — Cooperative acts are those performed between cooperatives and their members; between cooperatives and the members of their member cooperatives; or between cooperatives themselves, where they are associated in any form or linked through membership of a higher-level cooperative organisation, in furtherance of their objects.
Such acts constitute specific legal transactions whose economic function is mutual assistance. They shall be governed by cooperative law and, for the purposes of their interpretation, shall be deemed to incorporate the provisions of the cooperative’s statutes.
Their purpose may be to create, modify or extinguish obligations, or to effect acts of disposition in either the broad or the strict sense.
In the event of non-performance, the aggrieved party may elect between specific performance and termination or rescission, as appropriate, in addition to claiming damages. Such relief shall be sought through judicial proceedings, and the court may grant a period of grace.
In respect of matters not provided for under cooperative legislation, cooperative acts shall be governed by the general principles applicable to legal transactions and, in particular, to contracts, insofar as those principles are compatible, applicable and relevant.
Relationships between cooperatives and their dependent employees shall be governed by labour law.
