Sophie Chapman, Martijn Wilder, Ilona Millar

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 8 (2014), Issue 4, Page 270 - 281

How to share the benefits from REDD+ implementation is an important consideration for any country. For benefit sharing mechanisms designed to operate at the national level (often referred to as Benefit Distribution Systems), subnational level or project level, common structural elements will exist. In legal terms, this article refers to these as the legal elements of benefit sharing. From a legal perspective, the key questions to consider with respect to benefit sharing include how benefits are defined, how benefits are allocated (and to whom), how benefits are distributed, and how to ensure the accountability of benefit sharing arrangements (such as measures to ensure public participation and transparency). In order to assist stakeholders to deconstruct and organise the many different issues discussed within benefit sharing dialogues, this article offers a conceptual model of benefit sharing from a legal perspective, identifying and describing the different structural elements underpinning benefit sharing arrangements at any level of REDD+ implementation.

Sophie Chapman, Martijn Wilder, Ilona Millar, Arjuna Dibley, Donal Yeang, Joe Heffernan, Kirtiman Sherchan, Rowena Maguire, Caroline Wanjiku Kago, Nelly Kamunde-Aquino, Leah Kiguatha, Yvonne Nana Afua Idun, Mona Doshi, Gretchen Engbring, Elizabeth Dooley

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 9 (2015), Issue 2, Page 143 - 155

This article discusses two key issues in REDD+ design and implementation at the national level – carbon rights, and benefit sharing. Both carbon rights and benefit sharing can be understood as new legal concepts (although they build on existing law), and as legal concepts they offer a framework for addressing related areas of REDD+ policy. Many countries are currently considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing issues, including Cambodia and Kenya. Both of these countries host existing forest carbon projects and are also in the process of designing national REDD+ programmes. This article uses a conceptual framework for carbon rights and benefit sharing derived from legal analysis to consider the cases of both Cambodia and Kenya, and also includes a general discussion of the challenges countries might encounter when considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing in the context of REDD+ implementation.

Sophie Chapman, Martijn Wilder, Ilona Millar, Arjuna Dibley

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 9 (2015), Issue 2, Page 101 - 112

Around the world, many developing countries are considering the practicalities of implementing REDD+ at the national level. As a starting point, the requirements outlined by the UNFCCC and other international schemes (such as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility or different voluntary standards) provide guidance regarding what a national REDD+ policy needs to contain. This article discusses such requirements and guidance at the international level in order to provide countries with a summary of key considerations when addressing their domestic governance arrangements for REDD+.

Ilona Millar, Martijn Wilder

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 3 (2009), Issue 1, Page 13

vernance system of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and in particular the role and accountability of the CDM Executive Board (EB) were called into question by a number of public and private actors. In part, the spotlight on the EB had arisen due to the increased number of CDM projects coming through the CDM pipeline, resulting in a larger number of project participants with vested interests in successful project registration, but also resulting in a larger number of projects being placed under review and in some instances rejected. At