National Co-Operative Laws Versus International Co-Operative Legal Norms: A Case for Compliance in Tanzania

Abstract

Globalisation which generally means a phenomenon through which ideas, goods and services are allowed to spread freely worldwide, without being constrained by time and geographical space, created an environment for establishment of several extra-territorial business organisation relations, which necessitated widening the scope of international business laws to include legal norms governing cross-border co-operative societies. International co-operative norms denote global standards, comprised of values and principles established by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and endorsed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which guide establishment and operation of co-operative societies as independent legal entities. National co-operative laws need to incorporate ICA standards to be able to account for a normative system that accommodates cross-border co-operative societies which are incorporated in various countries or states. This paper analyses factors which have contributed to the developing of international co-operative norms such as ideological transformation, globalisation and regional co-operative laws codification with a view of determining their influence on enacting national co-operative laws that are compliant to international co-operative legal norms. The discourse advanced in the paper is that, attempts to translate global standards into national co-operative legislation can only be achieved if national co-operative laws are directed towards creating an environment which ensures that co-operative values and principles guide potential members and regulators at the stages of formation, registration and operation of co-operative business organisations. The paper makes an analysis of the co-operative laws of Tanzania with a view of determining its level of compliance to the ICA standards and finds out if they still have substantial non-compliant elements which need to be addressed. The paper then recommends awareness creation to cooperators and policy makers about the importance of values and principles of cooperatives as the country embarks on making amendments aiming at removing mismatches between national co-operative laws and international co-operative norms.