Legal approach to Indigenous participation through the implementation of ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ in forest restoration: Reflections from REDD+ Program in Viet Nam

Ensuring the meaningful participation of Indigenous people in the decision-making process of forest restoration projects is crucial for the success of those projects. The Free, Prior, and Informed Consent principle is rooted in international law to secure Indigenous participation in many forest restoration initiatives, including the REDD+ Program. Among the parties to REDD+, Vietnam has attempted to translate the critical concepts of FPIC into its national legal framework. Based on Abbott’s legalisation system and key concepts of environmental governance, sustainable forest management and human rights, this article designs a theoretical framework to explore Viet Nam’s current legal approach to FPIC implementation and the potential for creating a more effective legal structure for FPIC. The results show that Viet Nam prioritises a ‘soft-law’ approach to FPIC. However, significant gaps in adopting this approach still need to be filled. Therefore, this paper argues that the Vietnamese government should consider developing a hybrid legal framework to better underpin the implementation of FPIC in the country.