Legal Reform and its Context in Vietnam

Abstract

This paper places legal reform in the context of Vietnam's economic transition from planning to market. This paper focuses on the new role of the courts and bureaucracies in the changing economic environment. The paper offers a brief overview of Vietnam's formal legal structures and then reviews the various avenues for dispute resolution, including informal structures. The paper attempts to understand the tensions between vertical and horizontal structures that present challenges to reform of the legal system.

Keywords: Vietnam, legal reform, transition

JEL Classification: P26, P39, K49