Vietnam is ready to work with countries in the region and the international community to strengthen cooperation and share experiences in combating illegal fishing, stated Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang.

Community-based groups in recent years have been helping protect marine environments and aquatic resources by detecting and preventing illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the central region.

Fisheries will be developed into an important economic sector of the nation by 2030, according to the strategy for fisheries development through 2030, with a vision toward 2045.

Ambassador Le Thi Tuyet Mai, Head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international organizations in Geneva, led a delegation to join WTO negotiations on fisheries subsidies, which was held virtually in February.

In a recent interview with Vietnam News Agency, Nguyen Manh Dong, head of the Maritime Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ National Border Committee, reiterated Vietnam’s consistent policy that all international disputes, including those in the South China Sea (known in Vietnam as the East Sea), must be resolved by peaceful means as regulated in the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

A Government-level negotiation on territorial and border issues between Vietnam and China took place in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai on January 14.

Vietnam’s laws on waste disposal at sea put the marine ecosystem, aquatic resources and people’s livelihoods under severe threat, according to experts.

On June 20, 2017, the National Assembly passed the revised Penal Code. It became effective on January 1, 2018. Several significant changes have occurred. Several acts, previously criminal, are no longer punishable. On the other hand, several previously innocent acts have been criminalized. One very large change is that an enterprise-not just an individual-may now be guilty of a crime1.

The 2015 Penal Code marks a great progress in the country’s criminal justice by holding commercial legal entities liable for their criminal acts. Its novel provisions create a legal basis for the fight against criminal acts committed by commercial legal entities in recent years as well as for international cooperation on combating crime, especially transnational organized crime.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has had negative impacts on the coastal countries, including Vietnam. The author reviews the situation of IUU fishing in the region and recommends legal and practical actions to fight this problem in response to the EU’s warning against Vietnam’s fisheries products imported to the Union.