Forests, Carbon & Rights: The Transnational Legal Process for REDD+ and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communitie

Since 2007, an extensive array of public and private actors and initiatives has supported the global development and domestic implementation of a new mechanism that would channel climate finance from North to South in order to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+). Given its technocratic focus on carbon sequestration and its potential to generate new funds for forest governance in developing countries, numerous scholars and practitioners have expressed concerns that the design and implementation of REDD+ activities might marginalize the interests and perspectives of local populations and dispossess them of their traditional rights to forests, lands, and resources.;This dissertation focuses on the causes and effects of the human rights .standards that have been incorporated across a range of REDD+ initiatives and activities around the world. Conceptualizing REDD+ as a transnational legal process entailing the construction and conveyance of legal norms across sites and levels of law that transcend the traditional territorial boundaries of sovereign states, I seek to answer two important questions. First, why and how have legal norms relating to the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities been constructed and conveyed across multiple international and transnational sites of law for REDD+? Second, how and to what extent have these legal norms been constructed and conveyed through various REDD+ activities carried out at the national and local levels in developing countries?;I propose an interdisciplinary theoretical framework anchored in a pluralist understanding of law and focused on the role of causal mechanisms in the construction and conveyance of legal norms within and across sites of law. Moreover, I employ a qualitative method known as explaining-outcome process-tracing to account for the spread and effects of rights across multiple sites of law for REDD+ from 2005 to 2014, specifically including: the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance, Indonesia, and Tanzania.This dissertation yields five important findings. First, the emergence of REDD+ functioned as something of an exogenous shock across multiple sites of law that disrupted the traditional patterns of the development and implementation of legal norms relating to the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Although it was far from being a panacea, REDD+ provided meaningful opportunities for actors to convey and construct these rights across these various sites of law. This did not lead to the transplantation of rights, but resulted instead in the construction of new hybrid legal norms that reflected the resilience and mediating influence of sites of law.;Second, the trajectories through which actors conveyed and constructed rights across different sites of law entailed multiple causal mechanisms. The pluralism of the transnational legal process for REDD+ made it possible for multiple public and private actors to exert influence, from above and from below, across multiple sites of law that offered different opportunities for the conveyance and construction of rights. Third, the conveyance and construction of rights in the context of REDD+ was facilitated by broader developments relating to the global emergence of Indigenous rights, the growing relevance of human rights to the fields of climate change and conservation, and processes of democratization in Indonesia and Tanzania.;Fourth, the recognition and implementation of the participatory rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (such as rights to full and effective participation or to free, prior, and informed consent) appears to have been relatively more effectual than the recognition and implementation of their substantive rights (such as rights to forests, land tenure, and resources or to livelihoods). This disparity in outcomes gives some credence to the expectations of critical scholars regarding the limitations of REDD+ for the promotion of rights.;Fifth, the implications of REDD+ for human rights are paradoxical in two important ways. For one thing, there appears to be an underlying tension between the appreciation of the distinctive rights and status of Indigenous Peoples and the progressive recognition and expansion of the rights of forest-dependent communities. For another, the underlying ineffectiveness of REDD+ as a policy instrument seemingly provided unexpected opportunities for the recognition and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.;Given that issues relating to the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities speak to larger debates about the objectives, challenges, and opportunities associated with REDD+, this dissertation enhances scholarly understanding of the law and governance REDD+. Lastly, it also speaks to the broader literature on the nature, influence, and legitimacy of transnational legal processes in a globalizing world.