At the invitation of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) of China and the ClientEarth, an European Environmental Protection Association, from June 8th to 9th, 2026, a high-lever delegation from the Supreme People's Procuracy (SPP) of Viet Nam, led by Mr. Nguyen Duc Thai, Deputy Prosecutor General of SPP of Viet Nam attended the Roundtable Conference on 'The Role of Prosecutors in Global Environmental Governance' and the Specialized Seminar on 'Ecological Environmental Law Enforcement and Global Environmental Rule of Law Cooperation' in Beijing, China.
Deputy Prosecutor General of the SPP of Viet Nam, Mr. Nguyen Duc Thai
delivers a speech at the Conference
This was a series of high-level activities jointly organized by the SPP of China, the China Law Society, and ClientEarth. In addition to the host country's delegates, the events were attended by delegations from the Supreme Procurator's Office of Mongolia, the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil, and numerous leading environmental law experts from France, Belgium, Finland, the United Kingdom, among others. The delegation of the SPP of Viet Nam included representatives from the leadership of Department 9, Department 13, along with the Chief Prosecutors of the People's Procuracies of Can Tho City and Dak Lak Province.
Attending delegates take a commemorative group photo at the conference
On June 8th, 2026, the Vietnamese delegation participated in the Roundtable Conference on 'The Role of Prosecutors in Global Environmental Governance'. Speaking at the conference, Deputy Prosecutor General Nguyen Duc Thai introduced Viet Nam's legal framework regarding Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation, with a particular focus on the latest advancements in ecological and environmental protection.
The Deputy Prosecutor General affirmed that the National Assembly of Viet Nam's issuance of the Resolution on piloting the People's Procuracy's right to initiate civil lawsuits to protect public interest marks a crucial step forward. This grants the Procuracy a more proactive role in initiating judicial mechanisms to safeguard public interest, including ecological and environmental protection. After 5 months of pilot implementation across 6 localities, procuratorial work in protecting the public interest in Viet Nam has yielded highly positive initial results.
On June 9th, 2026, at the Specialized Seminar on 'Ecological Environmental Law Enforcement and Global Environmental Rule of Law Cooperation', Mr. Nguyen Duc Thai delivered a presentation sharing Viet Nam's experiences in formulating environmental protection legislation. He re-affirmed Viet Nam's consistent policy of 'not trading the environment for economic growth' and highlighted 6 key practical lessons from Viet Nam: placing prevention at the center; linking legal liability with remediation and restoration; establishing mechanisms to protect the public interest; perfecting criteria for assessing ecological damage; promptly updating regulations to cover new types of pollution; and ensuring inter-agency coordination and international cooperation.
The Deputy Prosecutor General also congratulated and highly commended China on enacting its Ecological Environment Code, considering it a significant milestone in the codification of global environmental law.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Thai, Deputy Prosecutor General of the SPP of Viet Nam
holds a bilateral meeting with the First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil
On the sidelines of the conference, Deputy Prosecutor General Nguyen Duc Thai held a bilateral meeting with Mr. Hindenburgo Chateaubriand, First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil, to exchange experiences regarding public interest litigation supervision and jointly propose solutions to strengthen bilateral cooperative relations between the two authorities in the future.
Overview of the bilateral meeting
The participation of the delegation from the Supreme People's Procuracy of Viet Nam in this series of high-level environmental events concluded with great success, actively contributing to fostering cooperative relations between the SPP of Viet Nam and the judicial authorities of various nations, while affirming the role of the Vietnamese Procuracy in global efforts to protect the ecological environment and enforce environmental laws.