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The Living Convention Volume I is a guide that aggregates disparate international laws, declarations, and voluntary guidelines into a structured compendium. It focuses on the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities, and peasants, categorizing them into substantive rights (such as land tenure, food sovereignty, and cultural heritage) and procedural rights (such as free, prior and informed consent and access to justice). The document aims to democratize international law to empower these groups in negotiations, litigation, and the management of their social-ecological systems.

The Living Convention is a compendium of internationally recognised rights for Indigenous peoples and local communities. It uses an 'integrated rights approach' to bundle disparate legal provisions from human rights, environmental, and cultural law into a single, accessible resource. The document categorises these into substantive rights (such as land tenure and cultural integrity) and procedural rights (such as free, prior and informed consent), aiming to democratise international law for the stewards of biocultural diversity.

The document serves as a tool to democratize international law by grouping fragmented legal provisions into an integrated framework of 'Traditional Resource Rights'. It categorizes rights into substantive (e.g., land tenure, cultural integrity, and food sovereignty) and procedural (e.g., free, prior and informed consent and impact assessments), while analyzing the legal weight of binding 'hard law' versus non-binding 'soft law'.