Vietnam’s thirty-year journey with the New York Convention: emerging paradigms in international arbitration

Abstract Vietnam’s approach to enforcing foreign arbitral awards has become pivotal to international trade as businesses decouple from China. This article provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Vietnam’s evolution from New York Convention resistance to an emerging arbitration hub, based on three decades of court decisions since its accession to the New York Convention in 1995. By looking at enforcement patterns over three distinct stages (1995–2025), the article shows that Vietnam has carefully developed its arbitration framework to support its growing place in world trade, balancing its sovereignty with an increasingly sophisticated acceptance of arbitration, most apparent in the courts’ changing mindsets–from reflexive rejection to nuanced acceptance. The findings, which shed light on how geopolitical competition influences international arbitration enforcement, provide valuable insights for practitioners and scholars examining how emerging economies adapt international legal frameworks to local conditions in the region’s evolving commercial landscape.