Vietnam will likely ratify a U.N. convention on labor rights to appease Western trade partners, but the government will probably only partially enforce the convention, mitigating its impact on businesses operating in the country. According to U.N. officials and a Hanoi-based diplomat cited in a Feb. 27 Reuters report, Vietnam is expected to ratify the U.N. convention on the free establishment of trade unions later this year, likely in October. The United Nations' Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, known commonly as Convention 87, was created in 1948 and stands as a global safeguard for labor rights. However, it remains unclear as to how, once ratified, the convention would be applied in Vietnam, where labor organizations are tightly controlled, and where the only existing and legal trade union -- the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor -- is an organ of the Vietnamese Communist Party, which...
