Over the last four decades emissions trading has enjoyed a high profile in environmental law scholarship and in environmental law and policy‎.‎ Much of the discussion is promotional‎,‎ preferring emissions trading above other regulatory strategies without‎,‎ however‎,‎ engaging with legal complexities embedded in conceptualising‎,‎ scrutinising and managing emissions trading regimes‎.‎ The combined effect of these debates is to create a perception that emissions trading is a straightforward regulatory strategy‎,‎ imposable across various jurisdictions and environmental settings‎.‎ This book shows that this view is problematic for at least two reasons‎.‎ First‎,‎ emissions trading responds to distinct environmental and non‎-environmental goals‎,‎ including creating profit‎-centres‎,‎ substituting bureaucratic control of resources‎,‎ and ensuring regulatory compliance‎.‎ This is important‎,‎ as the particular purpose entrusted to a given emissions trading regime has‎,‎ as its corollary‎,‎ a particular governance structure‎,‎ according to which the regime may be constructed and managed‎,‎ and which trusts the emissions market‎,‎ the state and rights in emissions allowances with distinct roles‎.‎ Second‎,‎ the governance structures of emissions trading regimes are culture‎-specific‎,‎ which is a significant reminder of the importance of law in understanding not only how emissions trading schemes function but also what meaning is given to them as regulatory strategies‎.‎ This is shown by deconstructing emissions trading discourses‎:‎ that is‎,‎ by inquiring into the assumptions about emissions trading‎,‎ as featuring in emissions trading scholarship and in debates involving law and policymakers and the judiciary at the EU level‎.‎ Ultimately‎,‎ this book makes a strong argument for reconfiguring the common understanding of emissions trading schemes as regulatory strategies‎,‎ and sets out a framework for analysis to sustain that reconfiguration‎.‎