The Latest on the Best? Reflections on Trade Defence Regulation in EU-Vietnam FTA

Abstract

Vietnam is increasingly participating in the global economic integration as part of its strategy in transition into a free market economy, and has recently concluded the negotiations with the European Union (EU) on the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). The EVFTA is the first Vietnam concluded FTA that specifies obligations with particular emphasis on trade defence instruments. This article analyses the international, as well as Vietnamese legal framework in light of the trade commitments under the EVFTA trade defence instruments. The article examines the situation in Vietnam with regard to compliance both in law and practice with commitments in the aspects of anti-dumping, subsidies and safeguards. This article further identifies the main gaps, including enforcement issues and provides relevant recommendations on the necessary legal steps and timeframes (new acts, amendments or repeal of existing legal texts) to promote the consistency of the Vietnamese legal system with the EVFTA obligations. The analysis also assesses the impact on the Vietnamese legal system of specific parts of the EVFTA. In totality, the EVFTA rules, reviewed in this article, do not contain highly demanding norms which would be expected to affect a great number of domestic rules. Rather, the EVFTA contains soft commitments with limited implementation issues which suggest and support reforms in Vietnam with regards to trade defence, and indirectly, state-owned enterprises and competition law.