Local Content is an oil sector governance and sustainability policy that aims at check-mating the dominance of the foreign oil companies in host countries, and encouraging the participation of the local oil firms in the petroleum value-chain. It is a burgeoning concept applied in the upstream petroleum contracts in the developing petro states. This study was conducted to examine the local content accounting, accountability and governance of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the five major International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria (Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total and Agip). The soft and hard accountability of the two principal actors were determined. The work drew on the Chatham House Guidelines for Good Governance in Emerging Oil and Gas Producers (2013) to derive its conceptual and analytical models. The study used the convergent parallel design and a combination of the three accounting paradigms to draw its conclusions. Thematic analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics including the post hoc Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests with Bonferroni Corrected Alpha, and the logistic regression tests were used. The study also applied the mechanistic content analysis methodology on fifty sustainability reports of the selected IOCs in line with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) sustainability reporting guidelines. Disclosure index and paired-samples t-test were used to determine the existence and trends in the IOCs’ local content disclosure practices before and after the enactment of the Nigeria’s local content law. The study found the local content policy to be an accountabilitybased sustainability driver in the Nigerian petroleum sector. Although the NCDMB’s performance was favourable to a large extent, the study found that corruption, fronting, and non-disclosure of the beneficial ownership of some oil firms remained the major challenges of local content in Nigeria. An expectation gap between the Board and the stakeholders on the financial accountability was established. The study found moderate and consistent local content disclosure indices of the periods before and after the Nigeria’s local content law, but higher volumetric disclosure in the period after the law, signifying likely impact of the local content law on the IOC’s voluntary disclosure. It was recommended that the Board should tighten up its regulatory responsibilities and avoid questionable practices. It was also suggested that the Nigerian local content rules should incorporate more incentives such as unringfencing and crossfencing of upstream costs to encourage more investment. The study also suggested that the accounting standard-setting bodies should issue dedicated accounting standards or expand the existing IFRS 8 and IAS 21 to comprehensively address the preparation and presentation of local content information in the annual financial statements.

O trabalho estuda a evolução da teoria geral dos contratos e os seus reflexos na teoria do risco contratual, tendo como ponto de partida o direito contratual clássico do século XIX e o paradigma da autonomia da vontade. No novo direito contratual do século XX em diante, a análise toma como fio condutor as obras de Emilio Betti e de Karl Larenz, dentro do que se pode considerar o novo paradigma do direito contratual: a regulação e a satisfação de interesses privados mediante critérios de autonomia e heteronomia. O objetivo específico desse estudo é verificar a hipótese de que a teoria atual tenha (ou não) enfrentado o problema econômico dos riscos imprevistos dentro da idéia de "economia interna do contrato", tratando o risco econômico imprevisto como um integrante do conteúdo do contrato com autonomia diante da prestação. O caminho percorrido pelo trabalho identifica que o direito contratual tem sua estrutura teórica construída sobre uma concepção formalista de contrato, segundo a qual essa figura jurídica é uma entidade com existência própria, a qual está centrada na noção jurídica-formal de "obrigação de prestar". Mesmo que, com a evolução do direito contratual, tal estrutura tenha passado a contar com uma função a ser desempenhada na vida real, o trabalho conclui que a teoria continua sem tratar adequadamente o risco econômico imprevisto, porque tal função permanece limitada pela noção jurídico-formal de "obrigação de prestar". / This dissertation studies the evolution of contract law theory and its influences on the legal theory of contractual risk. It begins with the classic theory of the 19th century and the will theory paradigm within it; from the 20th century onwards, the main analysis is based on the works of Emilio Betti and Karl Larenz, alongside with the new paradigm that pursues concrete interests through the combination of private autonomy and private heteronomy. The specific purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that the current theory may have (or may have not) dealt with the economic problem of unforeseen risks by utilizing the idea of economic balance of contract, insofar as to consider the unforeseen economic risk as an autonomous factor in the content of contracts. The research identifies that the theoretical structure of contract law is built over a formalist conception of contract, according to which the contract is an entity with selfexistence, one that is exclusively centered on the notion of "duty to pay". Although the evolution of contract law has given a function to this structure to perform in society and between parties to a given contract, the dissertation concludes that the current theory is still limited by the notion of "duty to pay", and that the unforeseen economic risk has not yet been provided with an adequate legal treatment.

O trabalho estuda a evolução da teoria geral dos contratos e os seus reflexos na teoria do risco contratual, tendo como ponto de partida o direito contratual clássico do século XIX e o paradigma da autonomia da vontade. No novo direito contratual do século XX em diante, a análise toma como fio condutor as obras de Emilio Betti e de Karl Larenz, dentro do que se pode considerar o novo paradigma do direito contratual: a regulação e a satisfação de interesses privados mediante critérios de autonomia e heteronomia. O objetivo específico desse estudo é verificar a hipótese de que a teoria atual tenha (ou não) enfrentado o problema econômico dos riscos imprevistos dentro da idéia de "economia interna do contrato", tratando o risco econômico imprevisto como um integrante do conteúdo do contrato com autonomia diante da prestação. O caminho percorrido pelo trabalho identifica que o direito contratual tem sua estrutura teórica construída sobre uma concepção formalista de contrato, segundo a qual essa figura jurídica é uma entidade com existência própria, a qual está centrada na noção jurídica-formal de "obrigação de prestar". Mesmo que, com a evolução do direito contratual, tal estrutura tenha passado a contar com uma função a ser desempenhada na vida real, o trabalho conclui que a teoria continua sem tratar adequadamente o risco econômico imprevisto, porque tal função permanece limitada pela noção jurídico-formal de "obrigação de prestar". / This dissertation studies the evolution of contract law theory and its influences on the legal theory of contractual risk. It begins with the classic theory of the 19th century and the will theory paradigm within it; from the 20th century onwards, the main analysis is based on the works of Emilio Betti and Karl Larenz, alongside with the new paradigm that pursues concrete interests through the combination of private autonomy and private heteronomy. The specific purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that the current theory may have (or may have not) dealt with the economic problem of unforeseen risks by utilizing the idea of economic balance of contract, insofar as to consider the unforeseen economic risk as an autonomous factor in the content of contracts. The research identifies that the theoretical structure of contract law is built over a formalist conception of contract, according to which the contract is an entity with selfexistence, one that is exclusively centered on the notion of "duty to pay". Although the evolution of contract law has given a function to this structure to perform in society and between parties to a given contract, the dissertation concludes that the current theory is still limited by the notion of "duty to pay", and that the unforeseen economic risk has not yet been provided with an adequate legal treatment.

O trabalho estuda a evolução da teoria geral dos contratos e os seus reflexos na teoria do risco contratual, tendo como ponto de partida o direito contratual clássico do século XIX e o paradigma da autonomia da vontade. No novo direito contratual do século XX em diante, a análise toma como fio condutor as obras de Emilio Betti e de Karl Larenz, dentro do que se pode considerar o novo paradigma do direito contratual: a regulação e a satisfação de interesses privados mediante critérios de autonomia e heteronomia. O objetivo específico desse estudo é verificar a hipótese de que a teoria atual tenha (ou não) enfrentado o problema econômico dos riscos imprevistos dentro da idéia de "economia interna do contrato", tratando o risco econômico imprevisto como um integrante do conteúdo do contrato com autonomia diante da prestação. O caminho percorrido pelo trabalho identifica que o direito contratual tem sua estrutura teórica construída sobre uma concepção formalista de contrato, segundo a qual essa figura jurídica é uma entidade com existência própria, a qual está centrada na noção jurídica-formal de "obrigação de prestar". Mesmo que, com a evolução do direito contratual, tal estrutura tenha passado a contar com uma função a ser desempenhada na vida real, o trabalho conclui que a teoria continua sem tratar adequadamente o risco econômico imprevisto, porque tal função permanece limitada pela noção jurídico-formal de "obrigação de prestar". / This dissertation studies the evolution of contract law theory and its influences on the legal theory of contractual risk. It begins with the classic theory of the 19th century and the will theory paradigm within it; from the 20th century onwards, the main analysis is based on the works of Emilio Betti and Karl Larenz, alongside with the new paradigm that pursues concrete interests through the combination of private autonomy and private heteronomy. The specific purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that the current theory may have (or may have not) dealt with the economic problem of unforeseen risks by utilizing the idea of economic balance of contract, insofar as to consider the unforeseen economic risk as an autonomous factor in the content of contracts. The research identifies that the theoretical structure of contract law is built over a formalist conception of contract, according to which the contract is an entity with selfexistence, one that is exclusively centered on the notion of "duty to pay". Although the evolution of contract law has given a function to this structure to perform in society and between parties to a given contract, the dissertation concludes that the current theory is still limited by the notion of "duty to pay", and that the unforeseen economic risk has not yet been provided with an adequate legal treatment.