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Abstract:
This bibliography aims to assist legal practitioners, students and researchers navigate the diverse sources relevant to the Vietnamese legal system in the 21st century. Its focus is on secondary sources and does not include specific reference to Vietnamese laws. While the secondary sources listed are predominantly in English, consistent with the leadership of this journal, guidance on how to access Vietnamese laws and Vietnamese secondary sources has also been included.

This five-part bibliography includes a limited listing of bibliographies; secondary sources on Vietnamese law published in Vietnam; secondary sources in English on Vietnamese law across 18 legal categories; guidance on how to access Vietnamese laws and a listing of Vietnam law-focused internet sites, including those that canvas law reform issues. Each of these categories is preceded by a short analysis of the material included.

In particular, the authors suggest readings to enable new researchers to navigate the field quickly. With the exception of the 'history section', the emphasis in each category is on contemporary writing. The sources have been identified during the course of the authors' research and teaching on the Vietnamese legal system at the Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne, Australia.

bibliography, Vietnam, law, guide, commentary

Abstract:
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam's legal reforms after the Declaration of Independence in 1945 were largely informed by the legal changes introduced in other socialist states. While initially Vietnam received advice from China, in the late 1950s it moved to mirror major reforms in the USSR. In an era when Vietnam and Russia established socialist administrations, it is possible to consider the nature of 'borrowing' court systems where the political ideology is shared.

A study of the Vietnamese system of dispute resolution over the period 1945 to 1976 and comparison with the Soviet system of courts reveals significant similarities, but also, on closer analysis, real differences. The institutional structure introduced into northern Vietnam and based on the Soviet model becomes 'Vietnamese', exhibiting characteristics of the previous local court systems and distancing the Soviet experience. In particular, distinctive attitudes to law and legal training are revealed, together with diverging uses of courts.

The significant role played by legal culture in the transformation of transplanted legal institutions emerges. The role of morality (both revolutionary and Confucian) and the marginalisation of law that resulted from the emphasis on moral conduct produced a 'Vietnamese-style' system of dispute resolution. French colonialism, the protracted Vietnamese war, regionalism and an historical distrust of formal dispute resolution (both French and socialist) also affected the Soviet model in its new location.

While the shared political orientation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and USSR enabled the Vietnamese to embrace a court system based on Soviet lines in the 1950s and 1960s, local Vietnamese influence reshaped and redefined the Soviet model. This analysis uses a particular definition of legal culture to ascertain its explanatory power and limits in ascertaining what will transform borrowed laws or legal institutions.

The author provides a postscript to her thirty-year study, concluding with an analysis of the current Vietnamese court system. Here the complexity of the contemporary expectations of Vietnamese courts comes to the fore. The transplanted court system is no longer under the sole influence of socialist models, but is now responding to such diverse interests as the Communist Party of Vietnam, foreign investors and donors. The author identifies and explores the tensions manifest in a court system conceived and constructed as a political institution, which is being reshaped (at least by some) as a legal institution.

Legal reforms, institutional structure, Vietnamese court system, socialist models, Soviet court system, socialist administrations

Abstract:
In 2006, Pip Nicholson attended a conference in Seattle convened by the Universities of Washington and Umeå together with the Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law. In the course of discussion she perceived divergent bases invoked to legitimate legal development initiatives in developing or transitional economies. More particularly, she noted that from parts of Europe public international law is used as a framework to morally inform and legitimate international legal aid. Those speaking on or about American and multilateral donor interventions identified sustainable economic 'development' as the legitimating mantra in the area of law and its development (either implicitly or explicitly). This remained the case even though 'sustainable economic development' is now often linked to or discussed using the language of good governance and rule of law.

As a result two issues emerged, at least for the authors. The first was the hoary and enduring issue of the extent to which the 1960s law and development movement has been replaced or continues as the rationalisation for aid. This issue has been taken up at quite some length in the literature. David Trubek explores this issue when he argues that we are now in a '"Third Moment" in Law and Development' which he characterises as containing:

"a mix of very different ideas for development policy. These include the idea that markets can fail and compensatory intervention is necessary; as well as the idea that 'development' means more than economic growth and must be redefined to include 'human freedom'."

As Trubek notes later in his chapter, 'despite rhetorical change the development assistance world still places primary faith in markets.' More particularly, this is acted out through development agency policies that largely retain the universal solution of 'market fundamentalism and market integration'. Trubek puts to rest the notion of a static law and development movement locked within the 1960s tradition. He thereby answers this first question.

The contours of the third law and development Moment are fluid, but as Trubek notes they retain a privileged space for aid for markets. The question this paper then asks is whether the current law and development Moment, as defined by Trubek, captures all aid activity. Alternatively, are there deviants? Put another way, are there donor-generated legitimations for aid that do not privilege markets? Trubek offers a paradigm to which we can return. After analysing the respective aid agendas of Australia and Sweden comparatively, the issues of a taxonomy of aid in the twenty-first century can be revisited.

At a greater level of specificity, this paper asks to what extent different legitimations for bilateral legal aid emanate out of parts of Europe and other parts of the globe (such as America or Australia). This is an important and relatively unexplored question. Its significance lies in the fact that if indeed bilateral aid is, even in part, motivated and activated by different aims, strategies and implementational models this contributes to the debate about whether we are in a law and development paradigm alone or whether other approaches to aid exist, at least with respect to bilateral aid. Discerning what might be used to legitimate aid and how it may be rationalised may also have implications for those seeking to look to the comparative aid experience. For example, if the objectives and domestic policy agendas differ between aid agencies, then 'inter-aid borrowing' (borrowing between aid agencies) needs to be undertaken with that information to hand.

We argue that there are indeed apparent differences between how Swedish and Australian aid is rationalised. This in turn reflects at least partially divergent objectives for international aid in the legal sector. However, the differences are at their most explicit in aid policy documentation and project documents generated for the donors' domestic audience. During implementation, arguably, the differences soften as each agency steers a practical course in negotiating aid commitments with the recipient countries and delivery. Therefore, through an analysis of the discourses of aid in each country we offer a preliminary reading of the many ways in which aid is legitimated and articulated by these two donors in the legal sector in Vietnam, noting how the legitimations vary.

Abstract:
This Article contends that while the contemporary Vietnamese judiciary and court system have been the subject of not insignificant reforms over the last two years, they remain political institutions. More particularly, we analyse the manner and criteria for the appointment and dismissal of judicial officers through an examination of relevant law, policy and practice over the last 5 years. Ultimately, we characterizes these judicial officers as having to act within the auspices of the Communist Party of Vietnam, despite reforms having been introduced and a great deal of rhetoric that cast the courts as more independent.

Vietnamese, judiciary, court, reform, policy