In light of recent international developments underlining the key role of forest ecosystems in climate change mitigation and adaptation, national governments are increasingly adopting legislation aimed at regulating forest carbon rights. In Mexico, a draft law on climate change is currently under discussion at Parliamentary level. The draft law would link adaptation and mitigation measures to sustainable development, taking into account the need to create a 'green fund', a national register of carbon emissions, as well as a national 'carbon market'. Currently, the national legal framework does not specifically consider forest carbon rights. This paper analyses the current legal framework in a comprehensive way, outlining relevant aspects of ownership rights on forest lands as established by the Constitution (1917, last reformed in 2009), the Agrarian Law (1992) and the Forest Sustainable Development Law (2003). This provides insights into who is likely to hold forest carbon rights in Mexico and most of those communities are indigenous, and as such are considered marginal groups (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics, 2007).