Paul Lambert (cooperator)

Paul Lambert (21 February 1912 – 17 September 1977) was a Belgian cooperator and professor of economics at the University of Liège.[1][2]

Lambert gained a Doctorate in Law from the University of Liège in 1935.[3] When Belgium was invaded in 1940 by Nazi Germany Lambert was conscripted and subsequently spent five years as a prisoner of war, which he recounted in his 1946 book Hommes perdus à l’Est ("Men Lost in the East"). He returned to academia after the war, later becoming Chair of Political Economy at the Law Faculty of the University of Liège.[4]

In the 1950s Lambert was elected to the board of the Belgian Federation of Socialist Consumer Cooperatives (FEBECOOP) before becoming President of the federation.[1]

In 1957 Lambert succeeded Edgard Milhaud as President of the International Center of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy (CIRIEC International).[3]

In 1959 he authored La Doctrine coopération, an influential overview and history of the ideas and the economics of the co-operative movement. The work was translated into English as Studies in the Social Philosophy of Co-operation (1963).

In 1962 he represented FEBECOOP on the central committee of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and then in 1966 on the ICA's executive committee.[1]

He died on 17 September 1977 from cancer.[4]