The Development of Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws and the Limits of Home State Regulation: Implications for the Tourism Industry in Vietnam

Tourism generates significant human rights risks, yet its value chains differ structurally from the manufacturing chains around which mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislation was designed. This article examines how far home state HRDD laws reach into tourism and what follows for destination states in the Global South. Combining doctrinal and comparative analysis of nine regimes with an examination of Vietnam’s principal source markets, corporate disclosures and a Vietnamese case study, it distinguishes contractually mediated, platform-mediated and unmediated tourism transactions and finds that home state obligations cascade effectively only through the first. Market fragmentation removes the lead firm on which cascading depends, and the statutory definitions of the regulated chain, notably the “chain of activities” in Directive (EU) 2024/1760 as amended, exclude most destination service relationships even where a large platform is present. Of Vietnam’s ten largest source markets in 2025, only Australia, with under three per cent of arrivals, had a national statute of the kind examined. A documented case of resort projects enclosing coastal access illustrates the resulting protection gap. The article proposes a destination state framework comprising a national action plan, a two-track due diligence statute, tourism-specific regulation, safeguards for the informal economy and access to remedy.