Regulating Sustainability by Combining Legality Verification and Market Access: Critical Reflections on the EUs FLEGT Scheme as Smart-mix Multi-level Regulation for the Timber Sector

The EU draws on smart-mix regulation when using market access as a lever for implementation of sustainability-related policy objectives related to forest law and governance in timber-exporting countries. Market access in combination with legality verification may be a powerful driver for reforms of law and governance, even pending granting of favourable market access. These are important outcomes; yet the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade scheme grants EU policy makers and regulators extraterritorial powers to influence law and governance affecting individuals, firms and public institutions that have no direct democratic influence on the framing conditions. This chapter maps these issues through the theory lens of multi-level regulation, testing and expanding the theory beyond the EU and providing recommendations for EU policy makers and regulators.