I stumbled over the concept of promise theory yesterday. It was mentioned in the FLOSS Weekly podcast on Cfengine. Promise theory is the theoretical underpinning of the latest version of Cfengine.
Promise Theory in this context is apparently unrelated to the Promise Theory of Contract but I cannot help thinking that this must be able to inform the drafting of contracts, especially +2 party contracts.
Also the concept of framing a promise as dependent on agents, body, scope and documentation appears useful in structuring ones drafting.
Finally this paper seems to suggest that one should be careful about relying on automated feedback loops based on SLA performance. I have been a great fan of this type of mechanism and the feedback I have received thus far has indicated that it works in practice. Irrespectively it is probably prudent to read the paper in-depth to see if this type of governance mechanism should be reconsidered.