ICA Congresses and the Pursuit of Peace

The selected congress record places peace close to the origins of the International Cooperative Alliance. The 1895 London report described the cooperative task as transforming economic organisation “peacefully and by voluntary association”, through equity and reason. It also recalled earlier proposals for international cooperative organisation in the service of social and international peace. At Manchester in 1902, these aspirations became explicit Congress policy through resolutions on cooperators and peace, international arbitration and the Alliance’s role as an industrial peacemaker.¹

Between the wars, the relationship acquired greater conceptual depth. Stockholm in 1927 connected opposition to war with fraternity, mutual aid and Rochdale mutuality, and associated durable peace with international economic interdependence. Vienna in 1930 spoke of the “economic peace of the world” while initiating the formal examination of the Rochdale Principles. London in 1934 adopted a resolution on peace and disarmament. At Paris in 1937, the pursuit of peace was described as an axiom of cooperation worthy of the standing of a first principle. This language expressed the depth of the commitment; it did not formally add peace to the codified Cooperative Principles.¹

After the Second World War, Zurich in 1946 called on the ICA to help win a peace understood as freedom from both war and want. Paris in 1954 joined disarmament and international supervision with economic security, associating peace with voluntary association, economic justice and democratic government. Stockholm in 1957 brought the UN Charter, basic human rights and international law into the same frame. By Lausanne in 1960, lasting peace and security appeared expressly among the ICA’s constitutional objects; Congress retained peace as a distinct institutional objective.¹

Vienna in 1966 adopted both revised Cooperative Principles and a separate peace resolution that urged governments “to accept the rule of international law”. Hamburg in 1969 carried forward the language of mutual advantage, equality and sharing; Warsaw in 1972 reaffirmed lasting peace and security and the relevance of cooperation to relations among people, organisations and nations. Manchester in 1995 combined adoption of the modern Statement on the Cooperative Identity with a peace resolution addressing disarmament, human rights and non-discrimination. It also welcomed the General Assembly’s request for an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.¹

A consistent proposition emerges from this selective record: the way people organise production, exchange and shared provision has consequences for peace. Over time, the congresses gave that proposition an increasingly legal expression, connecting cooperative solidarity with peaceful dispute settlement, human rights and an international order governed by law.

International law provides substantial foundations for this relationship. The UN Charter combines duties concerning peaceful dispute settlement and the prohibition of the threat or use of force with commitments to economic and social progress. Articles 55 and 56 connect conditions of stability and well-being with development, educational and cultural cooperation, and universal respect for human rights. The Constitution of UNESCO, adopted in 1945, locates lasting peace in humanity’s intellectual and moral solidarity and makes education, science and culture means of advancing justice, the rule of law and human rights.²

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights supplies binding obligations for its States parties. Article 1 recognises peoples’ freedom to pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Article 2 requires steps, including through international assistance and cooperation, towards full realisation of the Covenant’s rights, using the maximum of available resources and without discrimination. Article 13 connects education with human dignity, effective participation in a free society and peace. Article 15 protects participation in cultural life and addresses the conservation, development and dissemination of culture. Together, these provisions support a conception of development in which people exercise agency and sustain their cultural lives.³

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights makes the connection especially explicit. Article 22 recognises peoples’ right to economic, social and cultural development with respect for their freedom and identity, and places duties on States, individually and collectively, to ensure its exercise. Article 23 recognises peoples’ right to national and international peace and security. The Maputo Protocol adds women’s rights to peaceful existence and participation in maintaining peace in Article 10, and to sustainable development in Article 19, including participation in development planning and access to productive resources. These are treaty obligations for their respective States parties.⁴

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) provides a direct legal connection to cooperative organisation. Article 14(2) requires States parties to secure rural women’s equal participation in, and benefit from, rural development. Its provisions include development planning, education and training, and, expressly in subparagraph (e), the organisation of self-help groups and cooperatives to obtain equal economic opportunities. Cooperative enterprise thus has an express place within binding human rights law as a means of advancing equality and participation in development.⁵

The 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development gives these relationships a broader normative formulation: people are to participate in, contribute to and benefit from development; the human person is its central subject; and Article 7 links peace and disarmament with resources for development. The 2016 UN Declaration on the Right to Peace likewise connects enjoyment of peace with human rights, development and education. These declarations are not treaties. Their significance lies in the framework they articulate alongside binding obligations already assumed under the relevant conventions.⁶

UNESCO’s cultural conventions give this argument a concrete institutional form. For heritage falling within its scope, the 1972 World Heritage Convention places primary responsibility on States for identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations. Article 5(a) calls for policies that give heritage a function in community life and integrate its protection into wider planning. This supports an understanding of heritage as part of the social life and future of a place.⁷

The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is particularly relevant to traditions of cooperation. Article 2(1) recognises living heritage only insofar as it is compatible with human rights, mutual respect and sustainable development. Articles 11(b), 14 and 15 address community participation, education, the transmission of knowledge and active involvement in safeguarding. The people who create, maintain and transmit heritage belong at the centre of its stewardship.⁸

The 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions further connects intercultural dialogue with a culture of peace. Articles 11 and 13 address civil society participation and the integration of culture into development policies; Article 14 concerns cooperation for development. These treaty provisions bind their respective parties according to their terms. ICA recognition can contribute to their wider purposes, while remaining distinct from inscription under a UNESCO convention.⁹

Cooperatives bring an institutional contribution to this agenda because democracy and education are part of their enterprise DNA. Under the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity, people associate voluntarily to meet shared economic, social and cultural needs through joint ownership and democratic control. The second principle establishes member participation and the accountability of elected representatives; the fifth requires education, training and information. The fourth protects autonomy, while the seventh connects enterprise policy with the sustainable development of the community.¹⁰

These principles can give cultural participation practical expression. Members can deliberate over the use of a historic building, organise the transmission of craft knowledge, sustain shared resources and decide how the proceeds of cultural activity serve their community. Education equips them to exercise that authority with understanding. Democratic practice, in turn, gives learning a purpose and a place in daily economic decisions. Their contribution to peace depends on these commitments being realised through inclusive membership, accountable leadership and respect for the rights of others.

ILO Recommendation No. 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives reinforces this connection by recognising cooperative values and principles and calling for supportive law, policy and education. As a recommendation, it is not a binding convention; it provides an internationally agreed basis for enabling cooperatives to contribute to development while preserving their distinctive character.¹¹

On 4 September 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 80/308, proclaiming 2027–2036 the International Decade of Culture for Sustainable Development. The text, introduced as A/80/L.102, invites UNESCO to lead implementation and calls for participation, international cooperation, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing. It follows Resolution 80/148 of 15 December 2025, whose paragraphs 6 and 9 connect culture with peace, inclusive governance, education and lifelong learning.¹²

The Decade also creates an opportunity to advance the call, renewed in the MONDIACULT 2025 outcome document, for culture to be considered as an independent goal in the future UN development framework. That remains an ambition for intergovernmental consideration: the proclamation has not itself established an additional Sustainable Development Goal. Cooperatives can help give this ambition substance by joining cultural livelihoods and stewardship with democratic ownership, education and community participation.¹³

Surya Deva, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, brings a closely related perspective to the General Assembly’s eighty-first session. His report, Peace for development: road map for a peace economy (A/81/187, 15 July 2026), transmitted for the session’s consideration, urges States, companies and other actors to redirect investment from war economies towards the conditions that sustain peace.¹⁴

Paragraph 67 sets out four connected components: addressing the underlying causes of conflict; preventing escalation; building fair and inclusive institutions; and ensuring accountability for unlawful conduct. Paragraph 85 assigns education a role in strengthening tolerance, dialogue, cooperation and solidarity. Paragraph 93 emphasises meaningful participation in governance, with particular attention to children, young people, women and minorities. The report is the analysis and recommendations of an independent UN expert; it is not a treaty or a resolution adopted by the General Assembly.¹⁴

Applied to cooperative practice, this roadmap invites a concrete proposition. Enterprises organised around shared needs, informed participation and mutual responsibility can help address exclusion and strengthen the social relationships on which peace depends. Cooperative cultural heritage makes those relationships visible and available for learning. This is an application of Deva’s framework to the movement’s experience, rather than a claim that his report endorses the ICA programme.

For the 2026 inscriptions, the ICA’s Cooperative Cultural Heritage (ICA CCH) programme has described every inscribed site and element in the context of peace, in addition to its general description and its relationship with the cooperative movement. This approach considers the particular contribution that a place or living tradition can make to understanding mutual assistance, democratic life, shared stewardship, dignity and coexistence.

The connection takes different forms across tangible and intangible heritage. A building may preserve the memory of collective provision; a tradition may transmit skills of mutual support; a shared practice may provide ways of managing resources or resolving differences. Each account invites readers to understand cooperation within its own history and cultural setting.

The congress tradition, human rights law and contemporary work on a peace economy give these accounts a common horizon. They ask how people can secure their livelihoods, exercise a voice in decisions and pass on their knowledge in conditions of freedom and mutual respect. Safeguarding cooperative heritage preserves the experience through which those capacities have been learned and keeps it available to the generations who will carry them forward.

The sites and elements recognised this year, each described through its contribution to peace.