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Articles

Vol. 60 No. 1 (2026): Prawo i Więź

The European Union’s Legal Framework on the Prevention of Child Labour in Global Supply Chains: Lessons for Vietnam

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36128/6j63ft70
Submitted
10 December 2025
Published
19 February 2026 — Updated on 17 April 2026
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Abstract

Over the past years, the European Union (EU) has been the first to come up with a strong legal framework to eliminate child labour within global supply chains. Through tools like the Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD), the EU is bringing businesses to report, avert and address the negative human rights effects through child labour among transnational corporations in their operations. This research examines the normativity and institutional underpinnings of an EU regulatory strategy on the prevention of child labour in international trade, in terms of its legal enforceability, engagement of stakeholders, and access to remedy. It also discusses the applicability and flexibility of these tools to the situation in Vietnam, a nation that is becoming more integrated into global supply chains and more internationalized due to trade agreements like the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The study uses a comparative legal approach, which shows that both normative synergies and regulatory gaps can be established between EU legal norms and national legislation on labour in Vietnam. The results indicate, that although the legal system in Vietnam has adopted some of the international labour norms, there are some major issues, especially on the aspects of the legal definition, enforcement ability, corporate responsibility, and supply chain transparency. The paper has concluded that the EU experience has lessons to be learnt by Vietnam, on how to strengthen its child labour governance. These involve institutionalisation of the mandatory human rights due diligence, improving the labour inspection regime, and revising the law to suit international and bilateral obligations. This research paper is a part of a wider research on the issue of responsible global trade and legal reform based on human rights in the emerging economies.

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