On July 16, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on Prevention and Combat of Mass Destructive Weapons (draft law).
Presenting the Government's report, General Phan Van Giang - Member of the Politburo, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defense said that the draft law consists of 4 chapters, 37 articles, stipulating principles, measures, policies, resources and responsibilities of agencies, organizations, and individuals in preventing and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (VKHDHL).
The draft law is built in the direction of a framework law, only stipulating fundamental, stable, and long-term issues under the authority of the National Assembly; not legalizing technical contents and in-depth tasks that frequently fluctuate, assigning the Government to specify details to ensure flexibility, feasibility, and suitability with reality.
The scope of regulation of the draft law focuses on core contents such as national risk management; control list; specific management and control measures for activities, goods, materials, equipment, software, technology, and services that are at risk of being exploited.
According to the draft law, VKHDHL, also known as weapons of mass destruction, are types of weapons manufactured and produced with high lethality on a large scale, capable of destruction, causing great losses of vitality, technical means, facilities, ecological environment and causing psychological and mental panic in humans, including: nuclear weapons, radioactive weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons and other weapons with similar features and effects.
Presenting the appraisal report of the draft law, Senior Lieutenant General Le Tan Toi - Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of the National Defense, Security and Foreign Affairs Committee said that the Standing Committee agreed with the necessity of promulgating the law.
The Standing Committee of the thẩm tra agency believes that building a control list based on integration and standardization from the dual-use goods lists of ministries and sectors is appropriate, contributing to avoiding overlap and duplication of administrative procedures.
However, this agency proposed to clarify the mechanism for integrating, referencing and applying the control list to specialized lists, and at the same time supplement regulations on information security and handling mechanisms in emergencies.
Regarding suspicious transactions related to the financing of VKHDHL dissemination, the draft law is built in accordance with the principles of risk management, in line with the law on anti-money laundering and meeting the requirements for implementing resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
The Standing Committee proposed to clearly stipulate the responsibility for coordination and information exchange between functional agencies after receiving reports to ensure feasibility and avoid abuse.
Contributing opinions on this content, Politburo Member, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man said that the institutionalization of prevention and control of VKHDHL dissemination into law is a necessary step of the country.
According to the National Assembly Chairwoman, this law is not only of national defense and security significance but also the key to expanding international integration, improving the national ranking in anti-money laundering and terrorist financing according to international standards, and ensuring safety for foreign investment capital flows.
The National Assembly Chairwoman also noted that it is necessary to focus on thoroughly resolving the situation of overlap in the control of dual-use goods. Because dual-use goods both serve civil purposes and can be used to manufacture chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but are currently managed by many ministries and sectors.
