TS Nguyễn Thị Bích

Gỉảng viên Khoa Luật Dân sự - Trường Đại học Luật TP. Hồ Chí Minh

Vietnam is one of the countries has a relatively comprehensive legal framework for equal protection in labor. That both shows the political determination of the State of Vietnam and reflects Vietnam's efforts as a member state of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in realization of international conventions of ILO in national law. To date, Vietnam has ratified a number of strategic new-generation agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the European Union (EU) – EVFTA. The new FTAs ​​will of many market development opportunities to Vietnam but at the same time pose many new challenges for Vietnam in perfecting legal policies, especially in the field of labor law.

To effectively implement the contents committed in the two Agreements, Vietnam needs to continue to develop and perfect a system of policies and laws, according to the committed roadmap. This has a significant impact on the Vietnamese labor law system, because one of the important contents that these two Agreements aim to cover includes labor issues with a focus on issues such as: i) Freedom of association and substantive recognition of the right to collective bargaining; ii) End all forms of forced or compulsory labor; iii) Effectively eliminate child labor; iv) Elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation.

In particular, the issue of elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation is one of the four core standards of the ILO, expressing a consistent view that gender equality and anti-discrimination are a requirement in the socio-economic development of the country.

Within the scope of this article, the author will present legal issues and challenges in enforcing labor standards that "eliminate discrimination in employment and occupation" under new generation FTAs. in Viet Nam. The article is structured in four parts:

 (1) Some legal issues on labor standards “elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation”;

(2) Labor standards “eliminating discrimination in employment and occupation” according to a number of new generation FTAs ratified by Vietnam (namely, the CPTPP and EVFTA Agreements);

 (3) Assess the compatibility of Vietnam's labor law with the labor standard of "eliminating discrimination in employment and occupation" according to a number of new generation FTAs ratified by Vietnam;

 (4) Some proposals to improve laws and improve the efficiency of labor standards enforcement "eliminating discrimination in employment and occupation" under some new generation FTAs in Vietnam.

Keywords: labor standards, discrimination, anti-discrimination, employment and occupation.