This special issue of the Forest Policy and Economics presents a series of articles that explore the question of whether the emerging timber verification programmes have a limited scope by focusing on principles and norms for the operation of the industrial forestry sector characterised by timber exploitation by forest business enterprises, or whether they contribute towards a gradual evolution of an innovative new policy assemblage that balances timber legality and forest livelihood requirements. It presents the results of several recent studies that investigated the characteristics of the FLEGT timber legality programmes and of artisanal timber production systems. The articles focus on the position of the timber legality policy within the global forest regime complex and on the role of community forest management and artisanal timber trade in timber legality. They highlight major issues that are of relevance when considering how concerns on timber legality and forest-based livelihoods can be related. The various articles emphasize the position of FLEGT in the global forest regime complex and how its implementation at national level results in the emergence of new policy assemblages for balancing of timber legality verification with livelihood interests. The articles demonstrate that notwithstanding difficulties in designing a global forest regime, at national level horizontal interaction between different forest regimes may well take place. At this level global forest policies obtain a country specific meaning and are further shaped by the routines and principles of national actors and embedded in national forest governance practices.