This paper outlines the remarkable evolution of juvenile justice in Vietnam. It discusses the extent to which Vietnamese juvenile justice and related laws and policies have been shaped by identifiable ideologies and models of intervention. Moreover, the legal framework governing juvenile justice, mainly the 2016 Law on Children, the 2015 Penal Code, the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code and the 2010 Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments, is introduced to show the complex and scattered state of relevant legislation. The paper offers a short analysis of actors who perform the juvenile justice role or function and reveals a system without specialization or clear separation from the justice system for adult offenders. In addition to identifying emerging characteristics of the system, the author compares these with some typical juvenile justice models around the world, namely the welfare model, the justice model and the restorative model, and concludes that the Vietnamese model is a hybrid mixture of these three ones. Finally, the author makes some recommendations on shaping the juvenile justice system of Vietnam in conformity with international standards in order to meet access-to-justice needs of Vietnamese juvenile offenders.

Mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is an effective channel to handle criminal cases involving overseas investigation and collection of documents and evidence. However, the result of mutual legal assistance on wildlife-related crimes remains below expectations mostly because of belated response to mutual legal assistance request. This article reviews the current situation of mutual legal assistance in handling wildlife-related criminal cases and puts forth some recommendations to improve the effectiveness of this work.

The 2015 Penal Code prescribes heavy fines for corporate legal persons’ crimes violating regulations on management and protection of endangered, precious and rare wild animals, ranging from VND 300 million to VND 15 billion. This shows that Vietnam is always aware of the nature and danger of these crimes to the ecological environment.

Compared to the 1999 version, the 2015 Penal Code’s provisions on protection of wildlife have been significantly revised toward expanding the scope of application of the monetary penalty, increasing penalties and adding some aggravating circumstances. This article analyzes these regulations and proposes a number of recommendations for more effective protection of endangered, precious, and rare wildlife.

On April 8, 2020, the Government issued Decree 44/2020/ND-CP (Decree 44), prescribing enforcement of judgments against commercial legal persons in a move to detail the 2019 Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments. With this Decree, set to take effect from July, the legal framework for execution of criminal judgments against commercial legal persons has been fundamentally completed, guaranteeing the enforcement of the 2015 Penal Code’s provisions concerning criminal handling of commercial legal persons.

The 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT), one of the nine fundamental conventions on human rights, came into force on June 26, 1987, after being ratified by 20 member states[1]. Vietnam acceded to the UNCAT on November 7, 2013, and ratified it a year later. As a member state to the UNCAT, Vietnam has spared no efforts to build its legal system, particularly criminal justice laws including the Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, Law on Custody and Temporary Detention, Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments, Law on Organization of Criminal Investigation, etc., in conformity with the UNCAT.

Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution (the Constitution) provides for the first time human rights and citizens’ rights in Chapter II with significant progress in the recognition and exercise of these rights as well as specific cases where these rights may be limited.

In Vietnam, since 1945 the law on execution of imprisonment sentences has always considered labor a fundamental element of the inmate education regime. According to the traditional theory of combined punishment and education, labor is always a duty of inmates. Under the 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017) (the Penal Code), inmates must serve their imprisonment sentences and work and learn so as to become useful to the society[1]. Compared to other daily activities of inmates, their working activities are to be carried out throughout their sentence serving period and exert important effects on their education and reform results. Through these activities inmates can learn working skills and generate some incomes for their future community integration. That’s why the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments (the Law) seeks to improve the inmate labor regime primarily for raising the effectiveness of inmate education and reform.

The 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017) (the Code) is Vietnam’s first and only code that holds commercial legal persons criminally liable for committing criminal acts. This is a breakthrough in the country’s criminal justice policy and leads to a substantial change in the general perception about crime and punishment. It also applies various penalties to commercial legal persons found liable for crimes[1], including three principal penalties (fine, suspension from operation, and termination of operation), three additional penalties (prohibition from doing business or operating in certain areas, prohibition from raising capital, and fine, when not imposed as a principal penalty), and five judicial measures (confiscation of objects and money directly related to the crime; return of property, redress of or compensation for damage; coerced public apology; coerced restoration to the original state; and coerced application of measures to redress and prevent further consequences).

In order to have legal grounds to prevent and properly punish increasingly sophisticated crimes related to information technology and telecommunications (ITT) networks, which could cause very serious consequences to socio-economic activities, national defense and security, ITT-related criminal acts need to be prescribed in the Penal Code as well as specialized laws[1]. In the 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017) (the Code), these acts are grouped into nine crimes in Section 2 of Chapter XXI[2].