Vietnam ‘regretful’ over French court’s dismissal of Agent Orange case

“We strongly support Agent Orange victims to urge any company in charge of producing and supplying Agent Orange, or dioxin, to the U.S. in the war against Vietnam, which has caused millions of Vietnamese people to become victims, to take responsibility and address the relevant consequences,” spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pham Thu Hang said at a press meet on Thursday.

Hang said Vietnam is “regretful” for the verdict made by the Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday.

“While the war had concluded, its implications have continued to linger on the country and the people of Vietnam, including the long-term severe consequences of Agent Orange, or dioxin,” she added.

Nga was a journalist in the then French Indochina and activist around 60 years ago. She has been living in France for three decades, and began suing the companies in 2014, demanding them to take responsibility for harming her health, her children’s, and many others’.

However, she lost her case for the first time in 2021, when the French court ruled that the companies had “legal immunity from prosecution because they worked for a sovereign government”.

Nga filed an appeal, which was rejected by the Paris Court of Appeal on Thursday using the same argument. Nga’s French lawyer said they would take her case to France’s highest appeals court for a final ruling.

For over a decade during the Vietnam War, the U.S. army had sprayed around 76 million liters of Agent Orange, making over 4 million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia be exposed to the chemical. So far, only U.S., Australian and South Korean veterans had received compensation from companies related to Agent Orange.

Nga suffers from Type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy, which she linked to exposure to Agent Orange. She said she also contracted tuberculosis twice and developed cancer, and one of her daughters died of a heart malformation.

Monsanto, which was taken over by German chemicals giant Bayer in 2018, argued the French courts did not have jurisdiction in the case due to the issue of sovereign immunity.