The promotion of the conservation and sustainable use of forests is a crucial aspect of environmental protection. However, effective and legally binding international regulations specific to forests are still absent. The scope of this research is to analyse the existent international legal regime for forests and to elaborate approaches to the enhancement of its efficiency. The rigorous analysis of international documents leads, finally, to conclude that pure market-based mechanisms are not sufficient for the conservation of forests and stronger legally-binding provisions are needed. Based on these conclusions, the research proceeds with the analysis of possible ways of the development of international legal regime for forests, as well as the promotion of compliance with international treaties.