In Europe, local opposition to mining projects is growing, which has driven scholars in the mineral-rich Nordics to study the governance environment of the extractive industry. This article examines a proposed solution, namely Community Benefit Agreement (CBA), a contract through which a community grants its consent for a planned mining project. The broad aim of this article is to contextualise CBA with respect to the regulatory developments that are emerging in Europe, especially in the field of environmental law. The more specific aim is to lay out why CBA appears to represent an attractive regulatory solution in tackling social acceptance issues.

Based on the observations made through two interconnected developments, contractualisation and proceduralisation, this article concludes that in many respects CBA reflects the developments that are already occurring in Europe. With regard to the attractiveness of contracts, the contractualisation approach highlights that two qualities give rise to their attractiveness, namely their flexibility and their law-like character. The analysis based on the theories of proceduralisation lays out why these qualities are considered beneficial. The reasons can be summarised as follows: the enablement of democratisation, between-system coordination and the development of the contract parties’ agency in regulating.