Balancing agendas for climate mitigation and environmental justice continues to be one of the key challenges in climate change governance mechanisms, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). In this paper we apply the three-dimensional environmental justice framework as a lens to examine the REDD+ process in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) and the REDD+ social safeguards. We focus particularly on challenges to justice faced by marginalized communities living in forest frontier areas under an authoritarian regime. Drawing on policy analysis and open-ended interviews across different policy levels, we explore procedural, distributional, and recognitional justice across the REDD+ policy levels in Laos. We find that REDD+ social safeguards have been applied by both donors and state actors in ways that facilitate external control. We underscore how authoritarian regime control over civil society and ethnic minority groups thwarts justice. We also highlight how this political culture and lack of inclusiveness are used by donors and project managers to implement their projects with little political debate. Further obstacles to justice relate to limitations inherent in the REDD+ instrument, including tight schedules for dealing with highly sensitive socio-political issues under social safeguards. These findings echo other research but go further in questioning the adequacy of safeguards to promote justice under a nationally driven REDD+. We highlight the importance of recognition and political context, including aspects such as power relations, self-determination and self-governance of traditional or customary structures, in shaping justice outcomes.

平衡减缓气候变化和环境正义的议程仍然是气候变化治理机制的主要挑战之一，例如减少森林砍伐和退化造成的排放 (REDD+)。在本文中，我们应用三维环境正义框架作为镜头来考察老挝人民民主共和国（老挝）的 REDD+ 进程和 REDD+ 社会保障。我们特别关注生活在专制政权下森林边境地区的边缘化社区所面临的司法挑战。利用不同政策层面的政策分析和开放式访谈，我们探索了老挝 REDD+ 政策层面的程序、分配和认可正义。我们发现捐助者和国家行为者都以促进外部控制的方式应用了 REDD+ 社会保障措施。我们强调专制政权对公民社会和少数民族的控制如何阻碍正义。我们还强调了捐助者和项目经理如何利用这种政治文化和缺乏包容性来实施他们的项目，而几乎没有政治辩论。司法的进一步障碍与 REDD+ 工具固有的局限性有关，包括在社会保障下处理高度敏感的社会政治问题的时间紧迫。这些发现与其他研究相呼应，但进一步质疑了在国家驱动的 REDD+ 下促进正义的保障措施的充分性。我们强调承认和政治背景的重要性，包括权力关系、