Hanoi (VNA) – Continuing the first extraordinary session, the 16th National Assembly (NA) on August 4 looked into submissions and verification reports on the draft Law on Prevention and Control of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of nine laws on military and national defence affairs.
Building on existing national defence – security rules
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Gen. Phan Van Giang, presenting the WMD non-proliferation bill, said the draft aims to swiftly and fully translate the Party and State’s policies and guidelines on safeguarding the Fatherland early and from afar, as well as on deeper international integration, into legislation, including the policy of joining multilateral nonproliferation mechanisms.
It will complete Vietnam’s domestic legal framework at the statutory level, enabling the country to fully and effectively meet its international commitments and national obligations. It is also designed to create a more welcoming international environment for Vietnamese agencies, organisations and businesses to broaden investment, trade and technology cooperation with partners worldwide, most notably major economies and key markets such as the US. and the EU, he said.
According to him, the bill is built around administrative reform, stronger post-approval inspection mechanisms, and the adoption of digital technologies, connectivity and electronic data sharing. It seeks to embed these requirements into existing sector-specific procedures, databases and management systems as much as possible, while avoiding duplicative licensing, declaration, reporting, inspection or supervision where current legislation already provides adequate regulation and no specific risk indicators exist.
Turning to the bill amending nine military and national defence laws, Giang said it is expected to quickly and fully translate the Party’s push to reorganise the political system and adopt a two-tier local administration model into legislation.
The amendments also aim to maximise decentralisation and delegation of authority while cutting and simplifying administrative procedures to meet pressing practical demands.
Reviewing national risk assessment mechanism
Le Tan Toi, Chairman of the NA Committee for National Defence, Security and Foreign Affairs, said the committee broadly backs the scope of amendments and supplements in both bills.
Toi proposed the Government to keep reviewing the issues flagged in the verification reports, revise and finalise the two drafts, ensuring the legislation better captures the drive to renew legal thinking and remains consistent and coherent with the broader legal framework.
He also called for deeper scrutiny of the national risk assessment mechanism and measures to choke off financing for WMD proliferation, balancing defence and security imperatives with the need to facilitate socio-economic development./.
