ABSTRACT
The chapter provides a close look at a form of transnational contracting that sits uneasily between the 'economic' and the 'environmental'. It deals with a brief introduction to the forest carbon market. This introduction explains why it matters that there are two forms of forest carbon markets, reveals the hybrid and blurred identities of key actors, and introduces the normalizing force of contract law into a market that some still have trouble believing even exists. The chapter explains the power and the limits of conceptualizing forest carbon deals as contracting, exploring the plural legal orders within which transnational forest carbon contracts move. It reveals why forest carbon contracts demand both too little and too much of traditional paradigms of contract law. The chapter demonstrates the transnational migrations of legal norms and practices through forest carbon contracting, delineating the ways in which contractual practices effectively entrench other forms of private authority.
