Forest carbon projects have been developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the voluntary market and other domestic schemes. These projects provide insight into the practical challenges for REDD+ implementation with respect to defining rights to carbon, ensuring the permanence of REDD+ areas, and creating “investment-grade” carbon commodities which are capable of attracting private sector finance. Given that private sector finance will be necessary to scale-up REDD+ implementation, insight regarding the legal frameworks required to support private sector investment is valuable. This paper does not seek to advocate for either a market-based or projectlevel approach to REDD+ implementation, but draws on practical experience with early forest carbon projects to explore how legal frameworks for REDD+ can encourage private sector investment.