Guiding Principles for Durable Extractive Contracts

The Guiding Principles for Durable Extractive Contracts (the Guiding Principles) provide guidance on how resource projects can be developed to reflect the balance of risks and rewards that underpins durable contracts, while taking into account community interests and concerns since the very beginning. The Guiding Principles offer a blueprint for the content and negotiation of durable extractive contracts that can reduce the drivers of renegotiation and can provide adaptive and flexible provisions that, for example, can automatically adjust to prevailing market conditions. They also aim to assist host governments and investors in explaining the content of the contract to the public, thereby helping to overcome tensions between stakeholders. The Guiding Principles set out eight principles and supporting commentary that host governments and investors, as well as negotiation support providers and legal practitioners, can use as a common reference for future negotiations of enduring, sustainable and mutually beneficial extractive contracts.