Arguably, the international co-operative movement has its western intellectual roots in the eighteenth century, a time of shifting attitudes on the nature of the world, the beginnings of internationalism. It was a time when many Europeans were trying to absorb what some 3-400 years of exploration had revealed, to acquire knowledge that was universal, and to develop general – and hence international – laws for political behaviour. It is not surprising, therefore, that the formal co-operative movement – consisting of formally organized and often legally registered organizations – as it developed in the wake of that century, instinctively possessed an international perspective. Despite this basis in internationalism, however, the movement could not create an international organsiations until 1895, some fifty years after the Equitable Pioneers created their store in Rochdale and sixty years after Robert Owen organized the “Association of All Classes of All Nations”. It was also some thirty years after the idea of an international organisation had first been suggested. And when the delegates to the organizing Congress met in London. They made slow progress. They could not even decide on an acceptable definition for a co-operative, or even the need for one. In fact, the movement would not achieve that rather preliminary step until delegates gathered in Manchester a century later in 1995. It is important to understand, though, that the movement never lost or doubted its international commitments. It just continuously encountered obstacles, some of which it circumnavigated, others of which, in often too subtle ways, it tried to elude rather than confronting. This paper will explore some of the main challenges to the development of a genuinely global approach within the international co-operative movement. It will draw upon the author’s recent work in editing a centennial issue of the ICA Review (which started publication in 2008), histories of the national and international movements, his own participation as chair of the committee that developed the 1995 definition (within the context of a co-operative identity statement), and as along-time activist in the Canadian and international movements.