Cooperative principles in the Basque Cooperatives Law: notes on its legal functionality
Abstract
Cooperatives share, internationally, agreed-upon principles, reflecting essential values established over time, which, together with their definition, constitute a basic standard of cooperative identity. Within the regulatory framework encompassing the Basque Cooperative Law, the various cooperative laws have incorporated the cooperative principles proclaimed by the International Cooperative Alliance (and, in general, the elements that comprise cooperative identity) in varying ways, with disparate legal effects. This article analyzes the terms under which they are generally reflected in the current Basque Cooperative Law and the scope of their application. The regulatory background is reviewed, along with their legal significance in defining the cooperative society, their inspiring nature of the law, the manner in which they are applied, the effects of non-compliance, and the duty to promote and disseminate them.
Received: 30 April 2025
Accepted: 22 May 2025
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2025 Jesús Alfredo Ispizua Zuazua
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Last update: 22/05/2026
The authors are advised to read their rights carefully. We believe this approach ensures a fair agreement for both parties. These instructions should be read in conjunction with the Ethical Guidelines and the Open Access Policy, Licensing Terms and Copyright of the journal "Deusto Estudios Cooperativos (DEC)".
1. Authorship and Ethics
By submitting their manuscripts to Deusto Estudios Cooperativos (DEC), the authors accept and undertake to comply with the conditions of publication without the need to sign an additional transfer agreement with the Publisher (University of Deusto). In doing so, they guarantee that their work is unpublished in any form, original, and does not breach DEC’s Ethical Guidelines or the rights of third parties, and that no licences have been or will be granted that are incompatible with the rights granted to the Publisher.
The authors assume full and exclusive responsibility for the content of the study and formally declare that they have no conflicts of interest that affect the integrity of the research.
2. Publisher’s Rights
By submitting the manuscript, the authors agree to its publication under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. Consequently, they grant the Publisher the exclusive, royalty-free and worldwide right of first publication, editing, layout and exploitation of the article. This grant authorises the Publisher to distribute, sub-license and index the work in any format, medium, database or institutional repository, for the purposes of promotion and scientific dissemination.
3. Copyright
The authors retain the intellectual property rights to their article and retain the right to distribute and use their work for teaching purposes, future research or personal archiving, provided that the original publication in the Journal is cited. They are also permitted to republish in other media, provided that a (foot)note is included with the full reference to DEC (including the DOI, where available) and no explicit endorsement of the Journal and/or Publisher is implied.
4. Open access
DEC is an open-access journal; this means that it is freely and fully accessible in its entirety immediately upon publication of its content. However, in accordance with the licence mentioned above, the authors of the articles must always be properly cited; and both commercial use and any modification intended for distribution will require the express prior written permission of the rights holder.
More details are available under the section “Open Access Policy, Licensing Terms and Copyright”.
3.jpg)
3.jpg)
