The European Union (EU) aims to assume a leadership role in climate change mitigation through the implementation of regulations with extraterritorial application, including instruments such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and the EU Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR). This so called ‘Brussels Effect’ empowers the EU to shape global markets, as its substantial market size necessitates alignment with EU standards by international firms, thereby fostering an elevation in global regulatory standards. The Brussels Effect elucidates the EU’s capacity to unilaterally impose regulations on global markets. To secure access to the EU market, companies adhere to EU rules, and may subsequently lobby their domestic governments to adopt analogous standards, engendering a de jure effect. While this phenomenon facilitates harmonization, it has elicited criticism. A primary impetus for the EU’s adoption of unilateral measures is the absence of a comprehensive, binding international accord on global forest protection. Existing international forest regulations are characterized by fragmentation across disparate agreements. The historical evolution of international forest regulation reveals a gradual intensification of attention to forests, progressing from an initial focus on timber to broader environmental considerations. However, the prevailing 'multi-instrument approach' exhibits inherent limitations, including the diffusion of essential regulatory content across instruments with varying legal force, and the lack of specific, robust, legally binding mechanisms for forest protection. The EU’s unilateral actions are further prompted by the perceived inadequacies of voluntary agreements, such as the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), in effectively curbing European imports of illegal timber.