US embassy cable - 03HANOI218

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 000218 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR CA/OCS/CI, CA/OCS/ACS/EAP, CA/OCS/PRI, CA/VO/F/P 
AND EAP/BCLTV, L/EAP, Bangkok for INS/DD, Ho Chi Minh City 
for CONS and INS OIC 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KOCI, CVIS, CASC, PREL, VM 
SUBJECT: VIETNAM: MEETING WITH JUSTICE MINISTRY ON ADOPTIONS 
 
REFS: A)  OI 49.02, Dec 16, 2002, to EAP/BCLTV, B) 02 State 
 
244073, C) 02 Hanoi 3027, D) 02 State 263467, E) Hanoi 25, 
F) Hanoi 64, G) Bernier-Toth/Savage telcon 11/22 
 
1.  (SBU)  Summary.  Consul met with Justice Ministry (MOJ) 
officials regarding a MOU on adoptions on January 23. 
Specifics were not negotiated, but several elements, which 
are seen as "must-haves" for an MOU, were identified. 
Parties with the "authority" to transmit cases to the 
Vietnamese central authority will be have to identified; 
foreign adoption agencies will have to be licensed by the 
Vietnamese central authority in order to operate or support 
adoptions in Vietnam; and any MOU must allow for the 
decree's clauses governing the child's citizenship and 
protection of not only the adopted child, but also the 
biological and adoptive parents.  The MOJ provided the 
implementing regulations resulting from the decree and 
agreed to provide the list of adoptions pending under the 
old rules.  The GVN flagged the issue of who will sign the 
MOU.  Consul agreed that USG would review the implementing 
regulations as provided.  A second USG draft MOU should be 
more specific.  End Summary. 
 
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DISCLAIMER 
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2.  (U) On January 23, 2003, Consul met again with Nguyen 
Quoc Cuong, Vice Director of the Department for Public 
Notarial, Legal Expertise, Civil Registration, Nationality, 
and Criminal Records, at the Ministry of Justice.  Consul 
and Cuong were not able to discuss the draft MOU provided 
ref D, or any other specifics regarding an MOU as Cuong had 
not received cleared guidance.  Cuong prefaced the 
discussion by saying that any comments about what might or 
might not be included in the MOU were his own and not the 
official comments of the Ministry. 
 
----------------------------------- 
GENERALLY SPEAKING - THE ESSENTIALS 
----------------------------------- 
 
3.  (U)  Cuong pointed out that the decree parallels the 
Hague Convention on Adoptions of 1993 and requested that we 
highlight the positive and good-intentions of the decree in 
media statements.  He reiterated that international 
adoptions will only take place if a bi-lateral agreement of 
some form has been signed between the two countries.  He 
then went on to note that adoption procedures are different 
following the new decree, and highlighted some elements that 
he feels must be included in any MOU.  The adoption 
application dossiers will have to be forwarded from the 
"authority" of the country of the Prospective Adoptive 
Parents (PAPs) to the Vietnamese central authority.  Cuong 
acknowledged that adoption processing is not centralized in 
the US and commented that we would have to work out in our 
MOU to whom that authority would be delegated.  He later 
mentioned that in agreements recently signed with Italy, 
Denmark, and Sweden, that authority was granted to adoption 
agencies.  Consul pressed to see if that authority might be 
granted directly to parents or their representatives, 
particularly in cases where parents are not using an agency, 
but Cuong could not go into this level of detail without 
clearance. 
 
4.  (U) Cuong then continued that the Vietnamese Central 
Authority would forward adoption application dossiers to the 
provinces, and the provinces would have the authority to 
approve a dossier only after the central authority had 
approved it.  The final critical element of an MOU that 
Cuong identified is that US adoption agencies would have to 
be licensed by the Vietnamese central authority in order to 
operate or support adoptions in Vietnam.  He could not 
comment further on what licensing would entail, and simply 
said that `the details would come later.'  He later 
identified one additional element of the decree which he 
feels must be allowed for in any MOU - the decree governs 
citizenship issues and protects the interests of not only 
the adopted child, but also the biological and adoptive 
parents. (Comment: Mission believes this may be a request 
for language similar to a clause in the draft framework 
agreement which calls for adopted children to not lose 
Vietnamese citizenship unless they choose to renounce after 
reaching legal age.  End Comment) 
 
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MAKE THE LIST? 
-------------- 
 
5.  (SBU) Consul asked about the status of lists of cases 
that had been accepted by the provinces by December 31, 2002 
for processing under the old rules.  Despite the deadline 
set for provinces to submit these lists to the MOJ by 
January 10th, only about two-thirds of the provinces (about 
40 of 57) have submitted those lists.  The lists received to 
date amount to almost 70 cases, including 27 from Hanoi and 
27 from Ho Chi Minh City.  Cuong guessed that a few (perhaps 
10) of these cases being processed under the old rules may 
run into difficulties - not because of the decree or new 
procedures, but because they were filed by agencies which 
have bad reputations and may not be legal adoptions.  Cuong 
agreed to provide the list, with names and not just numbers, 
when it is complete.  He also agreed to indicate which cases 
he anticipates will be problematic for internal use only, 
not to share with PAPs. 
 
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IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS 
------------------------ 
 
6.  (U)  Consul then requested the implementing regulations 
which will govern the implementation of the decree.  Cuong 
provided a copy of 07/2002/TT-BTP, issued on December 16, 
2002, titled: The Instructions for Implementation of Some 
Items of Decree 68/2002/ND-CP July 10, 2002 of the 
Government's Regulations on Some Articles of Marriage and 
Family Law on Marriage and Family Relations with Foreign 
Characteristics.  Mission has just received a translation 
which it will fax separately.  Mission has yet to review the 
document but, on first glance, it appears to be broad- 
ranged, covering legalization and notarials of family- 
related documents.  It addresses the marriage of Vietnamese 
nationals to foreigners, and illegitimate children, as well 
as international adoption of Vietnamese children.  Topic 
headers pertaining to adoption include:  Registration of 
Adoption with Foreign Factors, Procedures for Submitting 
Adoption Dossiers, Order of Introduction of Children for 
Adoption, and Procedures for Processing Adoption Dossiers. 
 
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A/S HARTY VISIT 
--------------- 
 
7.  (U)  Consul raised A/S Harty's upcoming visit and asked 
that the Minister of Justice and Vice Minister Cuong be 
alerted to the possible requests for meetings.  (Note:  Vice 
Minister Cuong is Vice Director Cuong's supervisor.)  Vice 
Director Cuong said that he would mention it to Vice 
Minister Cuong immediately but urged that any requests for 
meetings be made as soon as possible through the 
International Relations Department, as March is a very busy 
month. 
 
8.  (U)  Consul recalled Cuong's earlier indication that 
reaching agreement on an MOU in time for A/S Harty to sign 
during her visit to Vietnam would be impossible, and asked 
that he be open to the possibility.  Cuong indicated that if 
we were to work from the draft MOU as presented, it would be 
impossible to reach agreement by early March.  However, if a 
new draft were presented, detailing how the US would proceed 
in cooperation with the July decree and December 
implementing procedures, Cuong feels that agreement would be 
possible with a lot of hard work.  He added that the three 
agreements which have been successfully negotiated so far, 
have included 90% of the proposed ideas in the Vietnamese 
draft framework agreement.  He stated that a successful MOU 
must indicate cooperation on both sides and agree with the 
basic principles of the draft framework agreement. 
Following on, he acknowledged that the US system and 
adoption procedures are very different from Vietnam's, and 
particularly mentioned the de-centralization of the United 
States system where matters are governed at the State level. 
He suggested that these differences should be talked 
through. 
 
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SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE 
----------------------- 
 
9.  (U)  Cuong raised the issue of who would be signing the 
MOU.  He indicated that "the President" would have to 
authorize whoever did the signing.  (He seemed to be 
indicating a direct authorization specific to this MOU.) 
Cuong asked that the USG begin now to determine who will 
sign and then authorize that person to sign.  He was pleased 
that the Ambassador was discussing the MOU at a high level 
in Washington, D.C. at that very moment. 
 
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MORE SPECIFICITY 
---------------- 
 
10. (SBU) Comment.  Cuong's comments focused on a key GVN 
point:  The GVN considers that our first draft MOU was 
overly-simplified and thus cannot comment on that first 
draft.  Mission recommends that our next draft be 
substantive, and address specific points where the US will 
cooperate and comply with the decree and implementing 
regulations. 
BURGHARDT