Values, pluralism, and decoloniality in transnational forest governance: a comparative legal analysis

This article theorises transnational forest governance as a field of normative struggle constituted through competing instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values of forests and stabilised through scalar politics and legal pluralism. It develops a comparative analytical framework linking public international regimes (UNFCCC REDD+ safeguards and the Warsaw Framework), private carbon standards (Verra methodologies and integrity controversies), supply-chain due diligence and certification (FLEGT VPAs, EUTR legacy, EU Deforestation Regulation, FSC), and biodiversity/knowledge governance (Nagoya Protocol, national ABS implementation, and biopiracy controversies). Building on decolonial theory and Indigenous legal scholarship, it argues that ‘values integration’ often functions as procedural pluralism unless accompanied by structural transformation: repatriation, jurisdictional redistribution that recognises Indigenous legal orders as autonomous authorities, and Indigenous data sovereignty. The article concludes with decolonial design principles for pluriversal forest governance that shift authority, not only participation.