Legal frameworks for REDD: design and implementation at the National level

Abstract

The IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP) sends this book to print just weeks before Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to finalize a new climate agreement to replace or supplement the Kyoto Protocol. Perhaps the best-developed of the new options expected in that agreement, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) poses a unique opportunity for the world to simultaneously ‘get things right’ for both climate and forests. In recent years, policy research has grown rapidly in the area of options for designing and implementing REDD regimes, while far less analysis of the legal ramifications of such options has occurred. This is particularly the case at the national level, where perhaps the greatest need for legal and policy understanding relating to REDD is felt already. It is this gap that the ELP aims to address with its latest publication.