Cooperative Identity and the Law

This paper deals with the legal identity of cooperatives. It is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the role and function of law and of comparative legal research on the topic of cooperative identity (sec. 2). The second part focuses on cooperative identity within the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Principles and the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity at large (sec. 3). The third part compares the ICA Statement on cooperative identity with the legal identity that several European jurisdictions assign to cooperatives (sec. 4). Conclusions follow