This introductory contribution to a Special Issue (SI) titled “Legal Aspects of Ecosystem Services” intends to provide both a short introduction on the SI-topic as well as a brief overview on the content of each paper therein. The introduction aims to provide an overall entry point into the topic from a legal as well as an interdisciplinary perspective. It first offers initial insights into the relationship between the rule of law as one socially constructed normative framework and ecosystem services. Furthermore, it also points out interrelations among rule-focused, economic-focused and information-focused incentives, all with the potential to influence human behaviour with regard to ecosystem services.

The overview delivers as a sort of short-cut a table of authors, levels of the geopolitical scale addressed, types of analysis implemented and themes focused upon within the Special Issue. It further provides an overview of the main direction of each contribution to this SI.

The conclusions strive to provide a brief summary of the “why”, the “when”, the “where”, the “how” and the “what” of current and future research on legal aspect of ecosystem services.

对名为“生态系统服务的法律方面”的特刊（SI）的介绍性贡献旨在提供对SI主题的简短介绍以及其中每篇论文的内容的简要概述。简介旨在从法律和跨学科的角度为该主题提供一个整体的切入点。它首先提供了对作为社会构建的规范框架的法治与生态系统服务之间的关系的初步见解。此外，它还指出了以规则为中心，以经济为中心和以信息为中心的激励措施之间的相互关系，所有这些激励措施都可能影响人类在生态系统服务方面的行为。

概述以快捷方式提供了作者表格，所处理的地缘政治规模级别，已实施的分析类型以及《特刊》中重点关注的主题。它还进一步概述了对该SI所做的每个贡献的主要方向。

结论旨在简要概述生态系统服务法律方面当前和未来研究的“为什么”，“何时”，“在哪里”，“如何”和“什么”。